COVID-19: ‘Why the switch to gas-powered ventilators’

The Federal College of Dental Technology and Therapy, Enugu, Enugu State, has said it embarked on mass production of turbine gas-powered ventilators because of its effectiveness than those powered by electricity as one of the ways to tackle COVID-19 pandemic.

The Rector of the College, Dr. John Emaimo, stressed that the operations of electricity powered-ventilators will be disrupted whenever power supply fails while gas powered-ventilators can function uninterrupted for days.

A statement made available to newsmen in Abuja by the institution’s Head of Public Relations, Omololu Ogunmade, noted that the move by the college had attracted the attention of National Orthopaedic Hospital which has the exclusive preserve on care as well as the utilisation of ventilators in the country.

According to the rector, National Orthopaedic Hospital advised the institution to make the ventilator unique to serve the end users, adding that medical personnel can put a patient on the ventilator for two days and go and sleep.

He was quoted to have said in the statement, “They said it will be good if we can change it to a turbine gas-powered product from the electricity-driven facilities because if electricity blinks, application is addressed but the volume of gas being used can be measured.

“They said if we make it gas-driven, we can put a patient on the ventilator for two days and go and sleep. So, they said we should move away from electricity-driven production to gas-driven initiative by taking the novelty of go-gas initiative.”

Speaking further, the academic disclosed that the college was prepared to patent the products by selling the rights to produce the ventilators to a company that will in turn be paying it for its initiative, adding it had also produced large quantities of face masks, face shields, sanitizers and distributed them to appropriate places for usage of citizens.