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Pimpri Chinchwad civic body to use unutilised ventilators to set up ICUs at its hospitals

All the 300 ventilators, packed neatly, have been stored in the civic body-run hospital in the Masulkar Colony.

3 min read
All the 300 ventilators, packed neatly, have been stored in the civic body-run hospital in the Masulkar Colony. (Representational)

The Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) has decided to set up more intensive care units across its hospitals by utilising around 300 ventilators that were received during the Covid-19 pandemic period and are lying unutilised. This comes even as 45 ventilators received by the PCMC-run YCM Hospital under the PM-Cares Fund are lying in a state of disrepair for months.

Dr Laxman Gofane, who heads PCMC’s medical department, told The Indian Express Saturday, “Around 300 ventilators that we had received during the Covid-19 period are lying unutilised with us. These ventilators were used at our make-shift facilities like the Jumbo Hospital and the Auto Cluster facilities.”

All the 300 ventilators, packed neatly, have been stored in the civic body-run hospital in the Masulkar Colony. “These ventilators were received from various sources, including from the central government, state government, CSR funds and donations,” said Dr Gofane. “As and when required in our civic hospitals, we are providing these readily-available ventilators,” he said.

When asked what PCMC plans to do with the unutilised ventilators, Municipal Commissioner Shekhar Singh said, “We are planning to increase ICU facilities in our hospitals with these ventilators. As of now, we have four ICUs at YCM Hospital. Similarly, we also have ICUs at our other hospitals. Wherever space is available, we will set up an ICU.”

Dr Gofane said during the Covid period, there was constant demand for ICU beds. “As a result, we set up new hospitals and have also provided ICU facilities at the existing ones as well as at the new ones. Besides four ICUs at YCM Hospital, we also have ICU facilities at our other facilities like Bhosari, Pimpri, Thergaon and Akurdi,” Dr Gofane said.

He added, “We do not have much space at the At YCM Hospital but ICUs can be set up at the other hospitals. At YCM Hospital, we have 45 ICU beds whereas in the other hospitals, we have some 40-45 ICU beds.”

When contacted, YCM Hospital dean Dr Rajendra Wable said the hospital currently is facing a problem of non-repaired ventilators received under the PM-Cares Fund. “As many as 45 ventilators received under the PM-Care Fund are lying unrepaired as their parts are malfunctioning. We have written to the company but they are not responding,” Dr Wable said.

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He added currently they have four ICUs which includes one NICU for babies. “We have 45 beds available in our ICUs. More than half of the beds need ventilators. Whenever a ventilator malfunctions, there is an urgent need for a replacement. If the PM-Care-funded ventilators can be repaired, they will come handy,” he said.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


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