SHRC seeks report on condition of ventilators at SAT Hospital

The State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) on Wednesday took up the suo motu case based on reports in some sections of the media that 11 ventilators at SAT Hospital were not functional.

However, the Superintendent of Government Medical College Hospital, Thiruvananthapuram, in his statement here, denied the media reports and stated that sufficient number of respirators were made available at SAT Hospital, and that the respirators said to be not in working condition were actually machines that were either condemned or reserved for repair.

SHRC directed that an official not below the rank of Deputy Director of Medical Education should inquire into the state of affairs and check whether ventilators, especially in pediatric surgery and neonatology, are in working order.

Panel directive

The commission instructed to take the necessary steps to make the respirators operational or to purchase new ones. The investigation report must be submitted to SHRC within one month.

Meanwhile, MCH officials said in their statement that the media reports were extremely selective and while they mentioned non-functional respirators, the news deliberately did not mention the 50 or more respirators currently working in the hospital.

The MCH Superintendent explained that currently SAT Hospital has a sufficient number of functional respirators and no one has been denied care due to lack of respirators.

He said media reports had served to create anxiety among people traveling long distances from other states to SAT Hospital awaiting specialist care for babies.

50 fans working

In the statement, it was stated that more than 50 ventilators are currently operational in the hospital’s pediatric intensive care unit, neonatal intensive care unit, pediatric cardiology/surgical intensive care units and maternal intensive treatment unit, and that no more than 35-40 ventilators are needed for all these intensive care units combined.

Ten ventilators were kept in reserve at all times. An additional number of ventilators were purchased during the COVID period.

In the statement, it was stated that it is unfortunate that misleading information about the hospital is spread through the media, while the facts are like these.