Faulty Chinese ventilators sold to Algarve hospitals may be thrown out due to technical issues

The 30 hospital ventilators acquired by the Intermunicipal Community of the Algarve and offered to the Algarve University Hospital Centre (CHUA) “have technical problems” that prevent them from functioning, admitted today the president of the association.

“There are some situations that have been reported to us by the hospital administration that in the tests carried out take the machine [ventilator] to the limit” António Pina, president of AMAL, told Lusa.

The problem with the functioning of the devices, deployed in the hospitals of Portimão and Faro and acquired from a Chinese company, was raised today by the Correio da Manhã newspaper. António Pina indicated that he is still waiting for the final report from the tests being carried out on the ventilators, noting that there were “other problems with the equipment that were not 100%, but that they were resolved with the company’s technicians through remote reprogramming”.

“We will wait, because these issues may be resolved with remote reprogramming with the company in China too”, he stressed. The president of AMAL, the entity that aggregates the 16 municipalities in the Algarve, believes that “until the end of next week there may be an answer, a final report, hopefully, because of the anxiety that is generated with this issue”.

Moreover, the AMAL president, also mayor of Olhão, revealed he had been “informally alerted to the problem with the functioning of the devices by the administration of CHUA”, an entity that is required to send the analysis of the equipment off for certification. For his part, the Secretary of State for Fisheries, who was appointed as coordinator of the response to Covid-19 in the Algarve, José Apolinário, told Lusa that he hoped that “together with the supplier, a way would be found to resolve the situation”.

“The Government will give comply with all possible collaboration,” said Apolinário, adding that he “knows that this is an eventual non-conformity that has to be determined from a technical point of view”.

“The Government will continue to manage ventilators at a national level depending on hospitals’ needs”, he concluded.