Delhi ventilator mishap: Company handling ventilator claims contract wasn't renewed

Media reports about the Delhi ventilator mishap suggests that the private company that ran and maintained the gas pipeline system claimed that their contract hadn t been renewed. On December 4, four ICU patients died because of an oxygen supply snag at Suhruta Trauma Centre.

A company executive claimed that the firm s annual maintenance contract had expired in October and the contract for staff deployment had ended last year, itself. Even the state health minister AK Walia who visited the hospital late on Wednesday night confirmed this piece of information. Hospital sources claim that the delay in contract renewal had led PES Installations to reduce the number of employees deployed at the hospital. The company had even written to the hospital, telling them that all staff would be withdrawn if the contact wasn t renewed.

Health minister Walia, however, played down the delay. PES Installations has been managing the gas pipeline system since 1998 and they were the ones who installed it. They were being given extensions regularly for so many years and the hospital had assured them that the matter was being considered. On November 17, the hospital sanctioned Rs 2.5 lakh for spare parts and repairs. How can the company wash its hands off its responsibility? the minister said.

Walia laid the blame on the company, saying that they had deployed only one untrained person to manage the supply on Tuesday morning. Shockingly, this led to the death of four patients who had been admitted to the hospital. On Wednesday, another patient who had been resuscitated also passed away.

Another hospital official said that the company was supposed to deploy nine people to run the system one technical supervisor, four technical assistants and four helpers. But for the last few days, the company had only been providing six people. . The person on duty on Tuesday night was not even trained for the job, said an official. The technician has been arrested for negligence.

PES Installations on the other claimed it was finding it difficult to maintain operations without a contract or payment. The hospital medical superintendent told us the matter was under consideration. We continued with the services despite the hospital's failure to pay us out of goodwill, he claimed. He added that several parts of the central pipeline system, including air compressor number one and two, ward vacuum unit and the oxygen flow meter among others needed urgent repair.

The centre gets trauma patients from Delhi and other surrounding areas.