The media office of the Lebanese Ministry of Health issued a clarification regarding the circulating information about the ventilators available at the Sports City.
The statement mentioned that the devices located at Sports City are portable ventilators used for transferring patients from one place to another for a limited time not exceeding two hours. The statement added: However, the artificial ventilators (ICU Ventilators) needed by COVID-19 patients who are in critical health conditions and are admitted to intensive care are entirely different in structure from portable ventilators and have specific specifications that allow them to be used for continuous hours over several days. The statement indicated that portable ventilators are completely distinct in their specifications and roles from oxygen machines used at home.
The statement confirmed that these devices, which Lebanon received from Qatar, are part of the field hospitals being installed in cooperation with the Lebanese army and will be delivered to these field hospitals to ensure patient transfer.
Moreover, the statement emphasized that, based on the previous data, the Ministry of Public Health wants to confirm that the donations received previously in the form of portable ventilators, which were received by the Lebanese army, were delivered entirely according to the needs lists provided by the hospitals. Therefore, thirty-three government hospitals received one hundred and twenty-two devices, and seventy private hospitals received one hundred and seventy-eight devices.
The statement noted that this confirms that the ministry is not seeking to retain any device at all but rather sought to obtain donations, most of which, at the request of their donors, were portable devices for patient transfer and not artificial ventilators designated for intensive care and critical cases.
