On Tuesday, Amazon announced that the company will 100 ICU ventilators to hospitals in India. The e-commerce giant has worked with MoHFW (Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India) to ensure that the ventilators are of acceptable technical specification and carried out its own compatibility checks to immediately fund 100 units of Medtronic’s PB980 model and bring them into India for urgent use.
In an official blog post, it is stated that as a part of the company’s commitment to helping India fight the devastating second wave of COVID-19, Amazon India has procured 100 ventilators through its global resources to immediately import these into India.
The post also stated that the company will work closely with Medtronic (MT) for these units to be airlifted into India and we expect the consignment to enter the country in the next two weeks. At present, Amazon India is working closely with the MoHFW appointed agencies to finalize the hospitals with the most urgent need so that Amazon can partner with MT for end-to-end delivery, installation, maintenance and training of personnel who will use these machines.
Amit Agarwal, Global SVP & Country Head, Amazon India stated, “With the urgency of adding to the medical infrastructure and capacity for Indian hospitals fighting against COVID-19’s severe second spike, we decided to urgently source, import and donate 100 ventilators to hospitals to be identified by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Government of India.”
“We hugely appreciate the quick response from the MoHWF to help identify the most compatible models, expediting the shipment import into India and for coordination with agencies of MoHFW to allocate these where they are needed most. We are doing more and are committed to support our country in the fight against COVID-19,” Agarwal added.
