Waiting for urgent equipment is a minimum 10-15 days: BMC

Currently, the demand for medical equipment is much higher than the supply. Pic/Istock

Over the past couple of months, the state and BMC have set up healthcare facilities to accommodate the growing number of COVID-19 patients in the city which require medical equipment in bulk. But, this has been an uphill task for the civic body as many kinds of medical equipment are imported from foreign countries and adjustments are constantly being made to the tendering process to deal with the challenges.

Senior civic officials said that the demand for medical equipment including patient warmers, ventilators and patient monitors is unpredictable and comes up suddenly based on the number of cases and acquiring the equipment takes at least 10-15 days.

"A lot of the specialised equipments come from foreign countries and transporting them takes time. Ventilators are coming from Ireland, the US, Turkey, China and Hong Kong while Bipap bilevel positive airway pressure ventilators machines come from Germany. There is a supply time lag and we are taking measures to procure the items as quickly as possible. Instead of taking out a single tender, we have aligned the quantity in multiple tenders," said additional municipal commissioner, P Velarasu.
Bipap are breathing machines for COVID-19 patients experiencing severe symptoms like breathlessness and until last week, tenders have been invited to purchase 181 of them.

Velarasu explained that currently, the demand for medical equipment is much higher than the supply coming in. "Since there is a growing demand when floating the tender, we try to plan for a time-wise distribution and ask for roughly 50 per cent more than the current requirement. By the time the equipment arrives, we hope that it would match the current requirement and if there is need for more, we float another tender," he said adding that despite the planning, they often fall short. He added that ventilators are the need for the hour and currently, another 50 adult ventilators are expected in the next two weeks while the supply of another 100 ventilators have been lined up which are expected to arrive 30 at a time every week.

Unlike other tenders, considering the urgency of the situations, Velarasu said these tenders typically close within 2-3 days while one of the tenders for ventilators was given an extension for five days.

"We are trying to streamline the process as much as possible. For tenders where the bidders have already been approved, the financial bids are directly opened. No time is wasted in vetting the same contractor for every tender."

There is a need for ICU beds as well. Until last week, tenders have been floated for the purchase of 960 motorised ICU beds, 420 manual fowler beds along with hospital furniture for new ICU facilities including 4,000 beds, 3,450 bedside lockers.

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