Plateau Governor, Lalong shops for local engineers as packed-up ventilators reactivated at Jos teaching hospital

Plateau Governor, Lalong

By Raymond Gukas, Jos

Ostensibly elated by the feat performed by two engineers who,  in the course of the week,  successfully brought to live broken down ventilators of the Jos University Teaching Hospital, (JUTH), Plateau State Governor, Simon Lalong has disclosed that the state may engage local engineers to produce more ventilators.

This, he said was to curb the dangers of the spread of the deadly Corona virus disease, COVID-19 which victims are increasing daily around the country.

The reactivated ventilators by Williams Gyang and Nura Jibrin; free of charge, has helped  increase the number of ventilators in JUTH to six and made the hospital more prepared to handle cases.

A ventilator is a machine that provides mechanical ventilation by moving breathable air into and out of the lungs, to deliver breaths to a patient who is physically unable to breathe, or breathing insufficiently.

The work of a ventilator is take over the body’s breathing process when disease has caused the lungs to fail. This gives the patient time to fight off the infection and recover.

Since the COVID-19 became a pandemic, hospitals worldwide are overwhelmed and ventilators have become scarce and expensive.
All over the world, there is a rush for ventilators but scaling up production has been tough and bump leaving wide space for innovators to leverage on.

“Governor Lalong is motivated by the need to fill the gaps, get the state more prepared, find workable solutions, encourage indigenous entrepreneurship in great moments of needs such as we have now,” said a senior COVID-19 Taskforce member in Jos.

“The governor and his team believe that the pandemic is a challenge to put our local innovators, designers and engineers to test. This is not the time to fold arms or doubt the ingenuity of abundant local skills,” the official added.

“In a resource-limited setting like ours, this is no mean feat. It is a testament to the possibilities that the Governor Lalong is increasingly demonstrating by his believe in local skills and in technology,” said Director General of Plateau State ICT Development Agency (PICTDA), Mr. David Daser