Trade & industry department downplays delays in ventilator rollout

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Deadline for delivery of 10,000 units has been shifted by two months, but officials say it won’t be a wasted effort

Ventilators manufactured by Draegerwerk AG stand beside empty hospital beds in the Jaffestrasse Corona Treatment Center in a converted hall at the Berlin Messe exhibition space in Berlin, Germany, on Friday, Aug. 14, 2020. Picture: KRISZTIAN BOCSI

A total of 20,000 the life-saving ventilators are set to be produced locally as part of government efforts to respond to Covid-19. The ventilators will complement the existing stock in the public and private health-care industry as well as additional purchases of ventilators from global manufacturers and donations received from other countries. SA reportedly has 4,000 ventilators in the private sector and about 2,000 in public hospitals.

Stephen Hanival, chief economist at the department, told MPs on Wednesday that despite the delays, SA is unlikely to experience a shortage of ventilators should the country experience a second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. “Yes we could argue that it would have been better to get production going in a shorter period of time, but the reality is even getting this project off the ground in the three months that we have had is perhaps the fastest development process that we have seen in SA in decades.”

 

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