INTEC delivers 100 mechanical ventilators to the Health Cabinet
SANTO DOMINGO. -The Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC) donated to Health Cabinet 100 fans mechanics Air INTEC, manufactured by a team of its students, teachers and graduates, with the aim of helping to alleviate the needs of the Dominican health system in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the delivery, which took place in the National Palace Regarding a meeting of the Health Cabinet, the rector of INTEC Julio Sanchez Marinez thanked the Vice President Raquel Peña for receiving a commission from the academy, on the occasion of delivering the equipment that it defined as part of a society effort through the university.
Sánchez Maríñez pointed out that INTEC has delivered more than 300 ventilators distributed to hospitals since May 2020, in the midst of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. “The manufacture of the fans is the result of a patent released by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and from which INTEC professors, students and graduates made adaptations, conceiving the INTEC Air, which has been of great help to expand the response capacity of the health system, ”he said.
He highlighted that INTEC delivers the fans to the Health Cabinet as they are the ideal channel for placing the equipment where they can be most useful. Sánchez Maríñez said that the manufacture of the equipment required collaboration between the health and engineering areas of the university, while thanking the support received by dozens of companies, organizations and individuals.
The Rector of INTEC was accompanied by the dean of the University's Health Sciences Area, Miguel Robiou, and by the coordinator of the engineering laboratories, Jessica Pamela Feliz.
Upon receiving the delivery, Vice President Raquel Peña, who leads the Government's Health Cabinet, thanked INTEC for the channeled undertaking, which she considered a source of pride both in the health part and in the engineering part. "Once again it is shown that engineering and health go hand in hand, if we want to continue advancing," said the official.
The Vice President said that the ventilators will continue to help save lives, "and they will be very well used and very well received," and assured that Doctors Mario Lama, director of the National Health Service (SNS) and Daniel Rivera, Minister of Public Health, they will deliver the equipment to the hospitals and clinics that need it most as soon as possible.
In this sense, the engineer Pamela Feliz, explained that the automated Ambu type equipment (Airway Mask Bag Unit, in English) serves to provide intermediate assistance, so that patients with reduced lung capacity do not have the need to be intubated, but rather can be assisted before reaching that level of crisis.
Feliz pointed out that, together with the university team, companies such as Plásticos Multiform, Rockwell, FARCO and others worked in the manufacture of the fans, which formed an alliance for the logistics of transporting materials and mass manufacturing of the fan.
He said that training will be carried out on the proper use of the equipment, in conjunction with INTEC and the Ministry of Public Health, aimed at the directors of the hospitals and clinics that receive them. In addition, he said that each team has an instruction manual for greater ease of use by medical personnel.