The rapid increase of infectious disease cases and lack of adequate medical equipment to counter them can put the entire medical infrastructure at standstill. In times like these, it is up to engineers and technicians to come up with innovative solutions and provide extraordinary assistance.
Healthcare workers are very busy people who have to attend to the sick round the clock. And due to the widespread transmission of the highly contagious COVID-19 around the world, a record number of infected cases have been reported. This has made their job of improving a patient’s life strenuous. Adding to that, a general shortage of ventilation machines has put the entire medical infrastructure, including the support staff in a state of helplessness.
Several efforts have been made by various organisations and institutions across the globe to overcome this severe imbalance of demand and supply. One such cross-disciplinary team constituting of engineers, physicians, computer scientists and others from MIT has devised a ventilator that is highly efficient, portable and inexpensive.
Brief introduction about ventilator
When a person is hospitalised due to a respiratory illness (accompanied by shortness of breath), then that patient is put under a ventilator. It is a machine that provides mechanical ventilation, or artificially assisted air supply to support the patient’s respiratory organs such as lungs.
While a normal breathing rate is about 15 breaths a minute (BPM), an inability to respire properly can increase this rate to about 28 BPM. In such a scenario, a ventilator can play a crucial role in ensuring survivability.
Emergency ventilator
The inexpensive ventilator unit termed as MIT E-Vent (short for emergency ventilator) has been designed around a manual resuscitator, also known as an Ambu bag. This hand-held equipment is present in large quantities in several hospitals. With the help of manual compression, air is pumped into the lungs via the patient’s airway. Read more Click Here
