Ventilator assistance, thanks to entrepreneurial doc
Emergency medical practitioner, Lesetja Ngoetjana says he designed the Automated Breathing Assist Ventilation System (BVM) to help the fight against Covid-19
LIMPOPO – Emergency medical practitioner and Director of Dr Temp, Lesetja Ngoetjana told BONUS it took him three months to design the Automated Breathing Assist Ventilation System or Bag Valve Mask (BVM).
The machine, which is approved by the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA), is able to use electricity, batteries or solar power.
The Mmotong resident says he designed the machine to help the fight against Covid-19 and hopes it will help hospitals, healthcare centres and emergency personnel.
Ngoetjana explained that he came up with a sketch for the machine with Cyril Ferreira who then went out looking for people to assist them to bring the machine to life. After a few prototypes, they finally got it right and Ngoetjana said he has 25 machines which are ready to be sold, adding that they are able to produce around 200 machines a week.
Ngoetjana says that during consultations with those in the medical industry, they were told that the machine can be used for not only Covid-19 patients, but also asthmatic, TB, sleep apnoea and cardiac patients.
He told BONUS that the BVM is one of a kind, using bag valve masks for ventilation, and that they are in the process of registering the product.”We hope that with the help of the BVM, Covid-19 patients will leave hospital healthy as the machine would have assisted them in breathing,” he said.
Ngoetjana added that he hopes the machine will be trialled in South Africa and that it will not be sold to individuals who are not medically trained.
