Centre sends 1,220 ventilators to Telangana

New Delhi: The Centre has decided to send 1,220 ventilators to be used in the Government hospitals in Telangana. Of this 688 ventilators have already been dispatched.

Stating this, Minister of State for Home G Kishan Reddy said that this decision was taken during the meeting he had with Union Minister for Health Harshavardhan. The present situation of COVID-19 in the state and the manner in which it was spreading particularly in the GHMC limits was discussed during the meeting, he said.

Reddy said they had also taken into co]nsideration the report submitted by the committee headed by joint secretary Health, Luv Aggarwal. While assuring all help to the State from the Centre to fight the pandemic effectively, he said that it was unfortunate that there were reports of some patients dying due to non-availability of ventilators.

According to him, the state government could have perhaps saved many lives if it had put to use 487 ventilators which were available with the state government but has not been put to use. The Centre on its part had sent teams to Telangana to study the ground situation. The teams visited Government hospitals and areas affected by coronavirus, held meetings with officials, met people and gave their suggestions. Asked if there was a need for lockdown, he said it was for the state governments to decide whether or not to have lockdown, which areas to be declared as containment zones and to increase the number of containment zones if need be. He said the Centre had already supplied 7.14 lakh N 95 masks, 2.41 lakh PPE kits and 20 lakh hydro chloroquine tablets to the state government.