In The Near Future, Indonesia Is Producing Ventilators For COVID-19 Patients

JAKARTA - The Indonesian government will finally produce a ventilator medical device for handling corona virus or COVID-19 patients. The ventilator functions as a breathing apparatus for patients with moderate to severe conditions.

At present, there are already two state-owned enterprises that are capable of making ventilators and have passed the product test from the Health Facility Security Center (BPFK) of the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Indonesia. They are PT Pindad and PT Dirgantara Indonesia.

PT Pindad, which usually produces weapons, will cooperate with UI and UGM to produce 200 ventilators per month. Meanwhile, PT DI, which usually produces aircraft, will cooperate with ITB to produce 500 ventilators per week.

Deputy Minister of Defense of the Republic of Indonesia (Wamenhan RI) Sakti Wahyu Trenggono considers that the ventilator to be produced is vital to handling COVID-19 patients. However, so far the supply has been very limited because the price of an imported ventilator device has reached hundreds of millions of rupiah, while COVID-19 cases are increasing.

Therefore, when the two state-owned companies are able to spend around IDR 15 million to produce a ventilator, all hospitals that treat COVID-19 patients will not lack respiratory aids and bother to import from abroad.

"Pindad and Dirgantara are capable of producing ventilators. The Ministry of Defense will make sure to buy products made by BUMN so that we don't move late and become winners in fighting COVID-19," Trenggono said on Sunday, April 26.

Trenggono explained that the manufacture of ventilators utilizes production machines from companies in the defense industry sector. Later, the process of making ventilators will be emulated from the way the United States asked Ford, GM, and GE's turbine factory to produce ventilators.

In fact, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), known as an aerospace and weapons manufacturer, was ordered by the Israeli Ministry of Defense to take part in fighting the corona pandemic, in which the missile production division at IAI was converted to produce portable ventilators.

Pindad Managing Director Abraham Mose said that his company's resources were able to take on a role by producing much needed medical equipment such as ventilators, oxygen cylinders, operating room masks, disinfectant booths and others.

"Pindad has made a Ventilator Pumping Machine, which functions as a breathing apparatus for patients with respiratory failure," he said.

Previously, the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs (Menko Polhukam) Mahfud MD stated that the government lacked a ventilator. Because, this tool is being contested by all countries in the world that have a large number of COVID-19 cases.

"Not only PPE, but ventilators are also being fought over. In our world today, we are working on it because that is not enough. Many overseas also do not get ventilators," Mahfud said, Friday, March 27.

Mahfud said, the death rate in Indonesia due to COVID-19 was so high because many COVID-19 patients with severe symptoms did not get a ventilator. Therefore, as much as possible the government should procure these tools to be distributed to hospitals handling COVID-19.

An engineer from Colombia who is part of a group making ventilators in Medellin, Mauricio Toro explained, if you look at the function it is not too complicated. But, in fact the manufacture of a ventilator must be reliable (reliable) because the level of stakes is quite high.

"If that fails, the patient is very likely to die," Toro was quoted as saying by the BBC. "This is what makes ventilators so challenging to make." he said, adding that moreover, in current conditions, in overcrowded intensive care units, where doctors have to treat more patients, the reliability cannot be properly tested.