Here's How A Genius Doctor Used One Ventilator To Help 9 Coronavirus Patients And Save Lives
As the coronavirus spreads across the world hospitals are faced with a huge challenge of catering to patients who require ventilators. A Canadian doctor rigged up a ventilator with do-it-yourself mechanics to treat nine patients instead of one. In a similar initiative group of volunteers in Italy 3D printed 100 expensive valves used for life-saving coronav virus treatments.
As the coronavirus spreads across the
world, hospitals, public health experts and hospital intensive care units are
faced with a huge challenge of catering to patients who require ventilators.
For the uninitiated, people who contract the COVID-19, tagged as dangerous viral pneumonia, need the help of bedside ventilators. According to Dr. William Graham Carlos a pulmonary critical care specialist, at Indiana University School of Medicine, ventilators ¡®supply higher levels of oxygen and also help push air into the lungs to open them up.¡¯ Air is delivered through a tube in the patient¡¯s windpipe into the lungs, mimicking the way we breathe naturally.
However, amid the pandemic and the rise in the number of COVID-19 patients, there¡¯s a global shortage of ventilators.
To deal with the crisis, medical professionals have been sharing hacks to increase ventilator capacity to help multiple patients in this time of crisis.
A Twitter user named and rural physician Alan Drummond shared a post about a Canadian doctor named Dr Alain Gauthier, who rigged up a ventilator with do-it-yourself mechanics to treat nine patients instead of one.
In the post, Drummond who is Dr Alain Gauthier¡¯s colleague wrote, ¡¯So in ten minutes the evil genius who is one of our GP anaesthetists (with a PhD in diaphragmatic mechanics) increased our rural hospitals ventilator capacity from one to nine!!!¡¯
So in ten minutes the evil genius who is one of our GP anaesthetists (with a PhD in diaphragmatic mechanics) increased our rural hospitals ventilator capacity from one to nine!!! pic.twitter.com/yNmuCCDbWd
¡ª alan drummond (@alandrummond2) March 17, 2020
According to a Mail Online report, Dr Alain Gauthier, who is an anaesthetist at the Perth and Smiths Falls District Hospital in Ontario and holds a PhD in respiratory mechanics, got the idea after watching YouTube videos created by two Detroit doctors in 2006.
To perform the task, patients have to be paired who have similar lung size and capacity. Then, multiple hoses are attached to the one ventilator so it is running at several times its normal power, reports Mail Online.
According to the Canadian Press, Dr Gauthier says the idea has tried once before, for victims of the mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017.
Soon after Alan Drummond tweet went viral, people started posting multiple examples of medical professional employing a similar hack with ventilators. Even billionaire and founder of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk took noticed of the thread and lauded the professionals.
Interesting thread
¡ª Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 20, 2020
In another example, another Twitter user shared a video of an emergency medicine physician who invented a way to connect four patients to a single ventilator, a solution that could significantly help overburdened hospitals.
Babock is now an emergency medicine physician at a hospital in Detroit, Michigan and posted a YouTube video on March 14 describing the technique.
¡°Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, many healthcare providers are struggling with a situation where they may have more than one patient needing ventilation and not enough ventilators to go around,¡± Babcock said in the video.
¡°That¡¯s why I¡¯m putting this YouTube together. So I can show you how to modify one ventilator to ventilate more than one patient.¡±
Another example shared by Twitter user is of a man named John Strupat who a retired respiratory therapist in London who devised a respiratory for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In 2007, the agency was looking for a life support device that could run on batteries and be deployed cheaply and effectively.
According to CBC News, Strupat explains that his device called the "pandemic ventilator" is ¡®a standard from the 1970s and requires a patient be intubated, the medical word used to describe putting a tube through someone's mouth and into their airway.¡¯
¡ª ~Cheryl~? (@long_daze) March 17, 2020
According to the report, it also serves as a cheaper alternative ¡®a conventional ventilator found in a hospital costs about Rs 18,90,565 for one unit, his design would cost about Rs 37,811 a unit and with a couple of modifications.¡¯
In a similar initiative, group of volunteers in Italy 3D printed 100 expensive valves used for life-saving coronavirus treatments in a day after a hospital ran out of them.
Complimenti a Cristian Fracassi, @temporelli73 e tutte le persone che lo hanno aiutato nella impresa di stampare in 3d le valvole mancanti per i respiratori dell'Ospedale di Chiari a Brescia.
¡ª Paola Pisano (@PaolaPisano_Min) March 15, 2020
(qui l'articolo completo https://t.co/QYZu6x9X1T) #SolidarietaDigitale #iorestoacasa pic.twitter.com/dF3G2RJY8S
3D printing business Isinnova reportedly lent a hand when the original supplier could not produce the valves quickly enough and managed to develop a prototype in three hours.
