Rahul Gandhi not a doctor, retorts firm AgVa Healthcare after allegations of substandard, faulty ventilators

Days after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged that the Centre is procuring "substandard" ventilators from a private firm amid the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, ventilator-manufacturer AgVa Healthcare on Tuesday slammed him stating that he is not a doctor.

Professor Diwakar Vaish, the owner of AgVa company claimed that the ventilators of the company are much better and cheaper than other companies. He told a news agency ANI that, "LNJP Hospital in Delhi did not reject our ventilator. We are in talks at Mumbai's JJ Hospital and St George's Hospital. These hospitals had third parties install our ventilators which could not be installed properly and doctors could not use them."

#WATCH: Prof. Diwakar Vaish, Co-founder AgVa Healthcare, responds to Rahul Gandhi's tweet of a media report alleging technical glitches in AgVa ventilators pic.twitter.com/zNhonHOG7X — ANI (@ANI) July 7, 2020

#WATCH: Prof. Diwakar Vaish, Co-founder AgVa Healthcare, responds to Rahul Gandhi's tweet of a media report alleging technical glitches in AgVa ventilators pic.twitter.com/zNhonHOG7X — ANI (@ANI) July 7, 2020

Our ventilator is 5-10 times cheaper, normally it costs 10-15 lakh, ours is for 1.5 lakh. International vendor nexus is very strong in this market, will they appreciate success of indigenous products?: Prof. Diwakar Vaish, Co-founder AgVa Healthcare,ventilators under PMCARES Fund pic.twitter.com/ANtKOsHklt

— ANI (@ANI) July 7, 2020

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.

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 Congress leader also said that the lives of the people of the country are being put at risk due to the opacity of PM CARES.

Vaish told ANI, "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...In this, international vendor nexus is very strong. Just like when Indian military equipment was indigenised, there was a lot of negative reviews. The same thing is happening here."

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.