Ventilator Scam - Gasping For Air

Last month, after an investigation in a local newspaper, the Gujarat government was forced to defend the purchase of locally-made ‘Dhaman-1’ ventilators that bureaucrats and doctors alleged were substandard.

- Uday Mahurkar

Critics allege the machines were rushed into production and inadequately tested because Parakramsinh Jadeja, MD of Jyoti CNC Automation, the manufacturer, comes from Rajkot, the same town as Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, and the two know each other well.

On June 9, state Congress president Amit Chavda called for the BJP government in the state to provide answers. “We want to know how many critical patients are being treated using the Dhaman-1 ventilator, and how many of them have died?” he asked. The Gujarat health secretary, Jayanti Ravi, claims the “issue is being stretched out of proportion”. A doctor at the embattled Ahmedabad Civil Hospital—where hundreds have died in conditions the state high court once described as “pathetic”—claims “not a single person has died due to Dhaman-1, which is a good ventilator for less serious Covid patients”. It’s not entirely clear what the doctor, who asked to remain anonymous, means by “less serious”, given that a patient requiring a ventilator is already in acute respiratory distress.