In a rush to avoid the nightmarish scenario unfolding in Italian hospitals, where doctors are forced to choose who gets crucial ventilators, the world is scrambling to produce the devices. A Canadian company says it’s in talks to ramp up production and is awaiting an official order from the federal government.
A Canadian company says it can crank up production within days of potential life-saving ventilators, once it gets final instructions from the federal government.
Countries are scrambling to avoid the nightmarish scenario unfolding in Italy, where doctors are grappling with which patients to save because there aren’t enough breathing machines to serve all the critically ill victims gasping for air.
The Toronto-based medical supplies company has a letter of intent from the federal government to purchase machines and says it can drastically scale up production once it receives one critical detail:
How many machines does the government want?
Thornhill Medical says its production plans hinge on the answer to that question — such as what kind of manufacturing partner might be required, and how financing might work.
Once that’s settled, production can immediately start, said company president Lesley Gouldie.
“We would be manufacturing this weekend if we knew what the order was,” said Gouldie, whose company’s MOVES SLC machine is like a portable intensive-care unit with a ventilator.
“We can’t initiate scaling until we know what we have to scale to.”
Those details should be released imminently, one federal official said. The federal government has been consulting with the provinces in assessing requirements.
Depending on the size of the order, Gouldie said the company can either retain the property rights and sub-contract production to a manufacturer, or transfer the technology in exchange for payments or royalties.
One thing she’s adamant about is the company can meet the demand.
“We’ll do whatever it takes to rapidly scale up,” she said. “Manufacturing capability is not going to be the limiting factor.”
What’s not clear, yet, is how many of these machines actually Canada needs. One study says Ontario risks running out within weeks.
The federal government estimates there are about 5,000 ventilators in the country; that’s the figure put forward at a news conference Saturday by Canada’s Deputy Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Howard Njoo.
