ACC Closes In On UTH Faulty Ventillator Case

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) says it is closing in on a case wherein the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) was supplied with faulty ventilators for its Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. The ventilators were allegedly provided by a company belonging the Patriotic Front MP for Katanshi, Anthony Mumba.

During a recent meeting of the Parliamentary Accounts Committee, UTH’s head of anaesthesiology and critical care Dr Christopher Chanda said technicians had used the ICU ventilators for about two months before discovering them to be faulty and taking them out of circulation.

Dr Chanda told the committee that there had been a great deal of pressure on hospitals during the pandemic and that technicians had little choice but to start using whatever ventilators were available, often without proper training.

“I understand that they [the ventilators] were procured y and as the Department of Anesthesia, we had no role in supplying the specifications of the machines, of course, the ventilators came and we are the end users on patients and we started using them,” Dr Chanda said.

He also explained that technicians may not have initially checked that the ventilators were working properly, again due to a lack of training.

“Unfortunately for this one, I think the training never happened and I think the training came two or three months after the machines were already in use,” he told the committee.

The supply of the faulty ventilators was previously cited in the Auditor General’s report as a dangerous and wasteful expenditure which had resulted in an unknown number of deaths.

The ACC is now understood to be investigating the matter, including the role played by Mr Mumba’s company.