USA, UK, Italy and France face serious shortage of ventilators and their medical systems are on verge of collapse
Ventilators have become an imperative and most demanded tool to fight Coronavirus as the patient would ultimately need a ventilator support if his/her lungs stop functioning due to the virus.
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A ventilator is a mechanical machine that is used to provide respiratory support to the patients if their lungs are infected and they are unable to breathe on their own.
A process called intubation is done before undergoing the major procedure of putting a patient on ventilator. The patient is sedated and a tube is placed into the windpipe through the mouth. The tube is then attached to the ventilator and the medical staff adjusts the rate of air and oxygen to be inducted in the lungs.
It’s a routine procedure for a normal patient but patients positive with COVID-19, this procedure needs special precautionary measures.
If we talk about global figures of ventilators, we are not the only nation that suffers shortage of ventilators but right now every effected country including the United States of America suffers from the issue.
USA, which has more confirmed cases in the world, it has been projected that around 950,000 coronavirus patients may need to be put onto ventilators during the pandemic. On the contrary, the country has only 200,000 ventilators out of which majority are of older model which may not be an ideal choice for the critical patients of coronavirus.
Similarly, United Kingdom also faces a shortage of Ventilators as it has 8,174 ventilator machines and the estimation of demand is around 30,000 which is almost the three times.
Italy, being the epicentre of the pandemic in Europe, has the highest fatality rate due to coronavirus with around 14,000 deaths and over 115,000 cases, is facing a devastating collapse of its health system as the country has only 5,000 ventilators. Italy has requested with the other European nations to provide ventilators and other necessary medical equipment but failed to get a positive response. It has directed the country’s only manufacturing company of ventilators to quadruple its production with Italian army also providing assistance to this process.
France, which is one of the most developed countries of the world, only has 5,000 ventilators available, also expects to face the pandemic catastrophe.
Only Germany is the country, which has considerably sufficient amount of ventilator machines i.e. 25,000 and expected to purchase 10,000 more in few days.
Now seeing the shortage of ventilators in so called global healthcare champions which are on the verge of medical catastrophe, we come to our dear country Pakistan.
Currently, Pakistan has around 2000 ventilators, 1300 in Punjab, 50 in Balochistan, 500 in Sindh while around 150 ventilator machines in KPK. With the global estimation of around 5 percent of the pandemic infected patients needing ventilators, the country is working hard to get more ventilators in order to meet its need.
The Prime Minister has indeed given hope that the condition till now is satisfactory and the virus hasn’t spread at a fast pace. Imran Khan has expressed hope that if the safety measures for Coronavirus continue till April 25, it may limit the number of cases to somewhere around 20,000 to 25,000 but it could cross the 50,000 mark if we did otherwise.
Even though Pakistani premier continues to be the most optimistic statesman of the world by spreading hope and positivity, but leadership must also understand the global health crisis followed by economical downfall. The Nation must join hands to face the pandemic together.
