LAHORE - The government hospitals of the City are facing a severe shortage of ventilators, which are at times life saving for the patients. There are 155 ventilators in the government hospitals of the provincial capital out of which, 20 are out of order and these hospitals are treating patients from Gujrat, Gujranwala, Sheikhupura, Okara, and Kasur whose population is exceeding 80 million. According to recommendations, the ICU beds having ventilators should be 10 per cent of the total beds of a hospital and on every two ICU beds there should be one ventilator. Mayo Hospital is 2,200 bedded, Jinnah Hospital 1,250 bedded, Services Hospital 1,200 bedded, Children Hospital 560 bedded, Ganga Ram 680 bedded, now authorities and public can well imagine how many ventilators are required to meet the patients demand. It is worth mentioning that usually there are 2,3 patients on each bed of these hospitals. This was revealed in a joint statement of PMA Office-bearers Dr M Sarwar Ch Dr Tanveer Anwar, Dr Shahid Malik, Dr M Riaz and YDA Office-bearers Dr Rana Sohail, Dr Aslam Rao, Dr Talha Sherwani and Dr Salman Kazmi conducted the survey. According to the survey Jinnah Hospital has 24 ventilators, Mayo Hospital 23, Lahore General Hospital 30, Punjab Institute Of Cardiology 19, Services Hospital 22, Children Hospital 17, Ganga Ram Hospital 12 and Kot Khawaja Saeed Hospital has 8 ventilators. Jinnah Hospital is the only hospital to have 4 ventilators in emergency ward while PIC has 1 ventilator in emergency ward, in Mayo 5 new ventilators for emergency ward are in plan while rest of the hospitals lack of ventilators in the emergency wards. Jinnah hospital has 20 ventilators in the indoor. Mayo hospital has 11 ventilators in central ICU, 6 ventilators in cardiac surgery ICU, 2 ventilators in pediatrics ICU, 1 in WMW and EMW and 2 in orthopedics ward. For reasons unknown to PMA & YDA The ventilators lying in orthopedics are lying there for 2 year unused in the professor office and have never been used for patients and our sources say that the professor is reluctant to hand them over to the hospital administration. In PIC one ventilator is there in emergency ward, one in Coronary Care Unit III for VIP patients and 17 in Cardiac Surgery ICU. It is worth mentioning that all patients after cardiac surgery require a ventilatory support for some hours. Ganga Ram Hospital has 2 ventilators in paeds intensive care unit while 10 in the surgical ICU. Services Hospital has 10 ventilators each in surgical and medical ICUs and 2 ventilators in paeds ward. Lahore General Hospital has 30 ventilators out of which only 4 are available for surgical and medical ward patients and rest are reserved for neurosurgery ward patients. Chairman Chief Minsters Task Force on Health Dr Saeed Ealhi said the chief minister had already issued orders for inductions of biomedical engineers. He said load of patients was raised due to provision of free medical facilities including medicine.