Rahul Gandhi is Not a Doctor, We are Ready for Demo Anytime: AgVa owner
NEW DELHI : The India-based ventilator firm has hit out at Rahul Gandhi days after the Congress leader accused the Centre of procuring “substandard” equipment from the company.
In an interview to news agency ANI, AgVa owner Diwakar Vaish said Gandhi should have done due diligence and consulted doctors before making the claim in a tweet. He added that his company is ready to provide a demo of the ventilator in any hospital.
“Rahul Gandhi is not a doctor. He is an intelligent man. He should have done due diligence before making such allegations. He should have consulted doctors. I am ready to give a detailed demonstration in the hospital on any patient,” he said.
Vaish accused international vendors of trying to sabotage Indian companies trying to endogenously manufacture ventilators during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We have not made the ventilator overnight. We have been in the market for three years. We have developed this step by step. This ventilator has all parameters that a normal ventilator has…
Diwakar added, “Our ventilator is unique. It is 5 to 10 times cheaper than other ventilators. Normal ventilators cost around Rs 10-20 lakh but our ventilator is Rs 1.5 lakh. It is wrong to accuse us in such a situation.” He challenged Rahul Gandhi asking him to get their ventilators checked by any doctor.
Our ventilators are five to ten times cheaper than normal ventilators. A normal ventilator costs Rs 10-20 lakh. Our ventilator is just Rs 1.5 lakh… Will international associations, international vendors accept this? That is why they are trying to sabotage us,” he said.
Vaish added that if third-party installations in the ventilator were faulty and done without keeping AgVa in the loop, it could result in faulty readings, which he suspected was the case in some hospitals.
“LNJP Hospital in Delhi did not reject our ventilator. They said our ventilators do not have BIPAP and CPAP. But later they sent us an e-mail confirming that our ventilators have BIPAP and CPAP… As far as Mumbai is concerned, JJ Hospital and St George Hospital got the installation done through a third-party.
In a tweet on July 5, Rahul Gandhi had accused the Narendra Modi government of “wasting” the lockdown by not ramping up health infrastructure and procuring “substandard” ventilators that are crucial for critical Covid-19 patients.
Using the hashtag “BJPfailsCoronaFight”, Gandhi had tweeted, “PMCares opacity is: 1. Putting Indian lives at risk. 2. Ensuring public money is used to buy sub-standard products.” He had also tagged a news report about ventilator manufacturing firm AgVa providing allegedly substandard ventilators, procured using the PM Cares Fund.
He said that the air contains 21 per cent oxygen and the coronavirus positive patient often needs 100 per cent oxygen. “Our ventilator can give any value between 21 per cent and 100 per cent. We have an oxygen sensor inside the ventilator whose power decreases slowly and in such a situation, it has to be calibrated. Every doctor knows this thing.”
Gandhi had questioned the quality of these ventilators, saying that many reputed hospitals, doctors and experts in the country have said that the AgVa company has supplied useless and second-rate ventilators, which disturbs the oxygen supply.
The central government ordered 10,000 of the firm`s COVID-model ventilators to AgVa Healthcare as part of India`s response to the pandemic. “We got support from the Make in India and Invest India. We admit that we are a small company.
We used to make 50-100 ventilators every month. But after coronavirus pandemic, we improved our production and now produce between 5,000 to 10,000 ventilators every month… We got support from Maruti, Invest India, BHEL and BEL to move forward,” Vaish told ANI.
The co-founder of the company explained that at a time when there was a shortage of life-saving equipment around the world, it was an Indian firm which came to the rescue and helped in saving lives.
