Manufacturers are racing to boost production of the medical
ventilators required to save the lives of many critically-ill
coronavirus patients, but there still may not be enough of the crucial
machines if cases surge, industry officials say.
Medtronic PLC, Philips NV, Draegerwerk AG and Getinge AB, among the
biggest suppliers of medical ventilators and related respiratory
equipment, said they are working to meet increased global demand,
including in the U.S.
Even companies that don’t make medical devices may chip in. General
Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. are exploring the possibility of making
ventilators, spokespeople for the companies said Thursday. The auto
makers have temporarily suspended vehicle production in North America
until at least March 30.
The added capacity may eventually help ease the crunch, but it isn’t
coming fast enough to keep up with mounting demand and may not be
sufficient if cases surge, industry officials and health experts say.
“The actual available inventory on the shelf is gone,” said Chris
Brooks, chief strategy officer at Ventec Life Systems, of Bothell, Wash.
“There’s definitely more demand than there is supply today. We’re doing
everything we can to ramp up supply.”
As many as 810,000 U.S. coronavirus patients could need ventilators
by the end of May, if cases were to double every six days, according to
Neil Carpenter, vice president of strategic planning at health-care
consultancy Array Advisors.
Yet the Society of Critical Care Medicine estimated, in a report
released this week, that more than 200,000 mechanical ventilators may be
available in the U.S.
If more machines become available, there may not be enough trained
professionals to operate them, said Lewis Kaplan, the society’s
president and professor of surgery at the Hospital of the University of
Pennsylvania.
The critical-care society estimates that the number of trained
physicians, respiratory therapists and nurses would limit the maximum
number of ventilated patients to about 135,000.
Hamilton Medical AG, a Swiss company with operations in Nevada, has
received hundreds of orders in recent weeks, including a steep increase
in the U.S. The orders, a spokeswoman said, are “more than we can
currently provide.”
To meet higher demand in Asia and Europe as well as the U.S.,
Hamilton is hiring new staff and expanding to weekend work, among steps.
The company expects to increase production in Switzerland to 400
ventilators a week, up from about 200 currently.
Medtronic said Wednesday it has boosted ventilator production by more
than 40% and is on track to more than double capacity to meet
“significantly increased” demand. The company said it would more than
double the 250-person workforce at its Galway, Ireland, plant that makes
its Puritan line of ventilators.
Yet hospitals face weeks of waiting for additional machines, because
the average turnaround time for new orders is about eight weeks, said
Soumi Saha, senior director of advocacy at Premier Inc., which
negotiates supply contracts for U.S. hospitals.
Premier is surveying U.S. hospitals to gauge how many more patients
hospitals can manage before they will need more ventilators, Ms. Saha
said.
Ventilators are machines — many about the size of a desktop printer —
that aid breathing. Critically-ill coronavirus patients, like those
with pneumonia in intensive care units who are having trouble breathing,
need the assistance to survive. The devices cost anywhere from $5,000
to more than $30,000 apiece.
The ventilators are mainly in hospitals, though a federal government stockpile also has the machines.
The stockpile, which is intended to fill supply gaps in emergencies,
has about 12,700 ventilators, Anthony Fauci, director of the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN Sunday. The
Department of Health and Human Services has ordered more ventilators, a
spokeswoman said.
Hospital officials hope that recent government bans on large
gatherings and other measures will mitigate the spread of the virus in
the U.S. and avert overwhelming the supply of ventilators. In Italy,
some hospitals either have no ventilators or not enough for all patients
who need them.
Other respiratory devices could be deployed in a pinch instead of
mechanical ventilators, said Eric Toner, senior scholar at the Johns
Hopkins Center for Health Security. One such device is a BiPap, a
machine connected to a mask that goes over a patient’s face and pushes
air into the lungs. They are similar to CPAP machines that people use at
home for sleep apnea.
https://www.marketscreener.com/MEDTRONIC-PLC-20661655/news/Ventilator-Makers-Ramp-Up-Production-Amid-Coronavirus-Crunch-30190304/
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