WATCH | First batch of Solidarity Fund’s R250m ventilator project rolled out

Acting Gauteng health MEC Jacob Mamabolo received the first set of CPAP ventilators to be used to fight Covid-19 at Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital in Johannesburg on Monday. The hospital had already put six CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) ventilators to the test, before receiving 36 more.

Prof Mervyn Mer, principal specialist in critical care and pulmonology and Dr Oliver Smith, specialist on anaesthesia and critical care at Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital, demonstrated how to use the simple yet innovative device. 

In July 2020, the Solidarity Fund approved the additional funding of R405m to go towards the purchase of critical health-care equipment for the public hospital system in the hotspots of Gauteng, Western Cape and the Eastern Cape. R250m was then approved for the local production of up to 20,000 non-invasive C-PAP ventilators in support of the National Ventilator Project. The first thousand ventilators will be donated to 60 hospitals around SA.

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