Ahmedabad, May 27 (PTI) The Ahmedabad Civil Hospital on Wednesday said it has upgraded 75 'Dhaman-1' ventilators - which have been at the centre of a row - it had received from the Gujarat government and put 15 of them to use for the treatment of coronavirus patients.

The announcement came amid a raging controversy surrounding these ventilators after opposition Congress had questioned the ability of these machines, claimed to be donated to the government by a Rajkot-based firm, in saving lives of COVID-19 patients.

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Out of around 100 such ventilators received by the Civil Hospital here, 75 have been already upgraded by installing new instruments and systems, said hospital superintendent Dr M M Prabhakar.

"Out of 100 Dhaman-1 ventilators we have, 75 were recently upgraded. Fifteen such upgraded machines were already put to use in COVID-19 ward.

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"New equipment added in the existing ventilators included a mixture, humidifier and compressor," said Prabhakar.

He added that the Civil Hospital has deployed around 180 standard ventilators along with the newly acquired Dhaman-1 devices for coronavirus patients.

Notably, this government-run medical facility, having 1,200 beds exclusively for coronavirus patients, is considered the largest civil hospital in Asia.

At present, around 800 COVID-19 patients are being treated here.

A massive controversy erupted last week when the hospital administration, in a letter to the government, sought more advanced ventilators claiming Dhaman-1 devices were not up to the mark.

The BJP government had defended its decision of procuring Dhaman-1, claiming these devices were as good as other such life-saving machines and certified by a centrally accredited laboratory.

The government had said Rajkot-based firm Jyoti CNC has developed Dhaman-1 brand of ventilators and donated 866 of the medical equipment to the state for free in April at a time when there was an acute shortage of these machines following the coronavirus outbreak.

However, the Gujarat Congress had alleged that owner of Jyoti CNC, Parakramsinh Jadeja, is Chief Minister Vijay Rupani's friend and "sub-standard" ventilators were being promoted by his government at the cost of human lives.

The ruling BJP had called the allegations levelled by the Congress as baseless and said the opposition party was maligning the image of a local manufacturer.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)