THE management of Federal polytechnic Ilaro, Ogun State has unveiled a locally made ventilator amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the management of the polytechnic, the challenge of getting a ventilator that costs thousands of dollars made the school to set up a 14-man technical team to build a ventilator within a week at a very low cost.
In an interview with OGTV, Olusegun Aluko, Rector of the Polytechnic, said staff of the polytechnics made frantic efforts towards building the ventilator
“Our scientists, engineers and medical experts that are here, sleep and wake up here and exactly a week after thorough work, they came up with this,” Aluko said.
“We have studied a lot of literature and worked with medical people. Then, what are the parameters we needed in terms of pressure, air volume, heart rate, heart beat, all those ones were taken into consideration and they were coded accordingly into the system.”
Samson Odunlami, Dean of Faculty of Engineering of the institution, who is also the research team lead, noted that “the mechanical team worked on the principle of the term and follower as well as the gearing system without using human hand to do it.
“So we have to automate it so that it will be working on its own, that’s why we came up with a roller,” Odunlami explained.
Dr. Tunde Jesuseun, Medical Director of the polytechnic while speaking on the invention said “What we did was to pass a tube called endotracheal tube into the trachea of the airway of the patient so that air can get to the lung,”
Olumide Afolayan, Head of Scientists at the polytechnic, said if there was power failure, the machine would record where the program stopped and when the light was restored, noting that there is no need to set anything as the device automatically goes back to where it stopped and the patient won’t feel anything.
Commenting on the development, Lateefat Ajayi, a member of Ogun State House of Assembly representing of Yewa South Constituency, who paid an unscheduled visit to the polytechnic promised to support the initiative
“I have seen this laudable ventilator and it is very impressive that something of this nature, came out of here,” she said .
Speaking further, she promised to inform the speaker of the state House of Assembly to ensure that the Ogun State Government supports the project.
Samad Uthman is a multimedia journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting. He tweets @sarmerdk2 and can be shot through [email protected]