The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a surge in demand for key equipment needed for the treatment of critically ill patients, including ventilators and personal protective equipment for medical staff. Apposite production and distribution of medical equipment are crucial for the patients and healthcare workers.
The estimates of the number of ventilators required in places such as the United States, where the coronavirus cases have breached 1,050,000, are in thousands. It means that the monthly demand of the U.S. during the pandemic has crossed the market demand of the entire planet during last year. At the same time, a supply crunch of ventilators is being evidenced in every nation. The ventilator manufacturers have already boosted their production by a considerable amount but the pace to fulfil all the demands is still not achieved.
John Kwoka, a Neal F. Finnegan distinguished professor of Economics at Northeastern
University, provides an insight into the reason for this shortage of supply. He attributes this shortage in times of public health emergency to the absence of stringent anti-trust laws to regulate the mergers and acquisitions by the Federal Trade Commission. Rapid consolidation in the health industry and medical equipment markets to avoid competition has resulted in a smaller number of very large companies with huge portfolios of products instead of a larger number of competitors in any single market. This has left many communities of rural areas in the United States without a single hospital and contributed to the shortage of equipment during the pandemic. To address this, a more vigilant regulation should be there and all the major manufactures should disclose their designs to facilitate smaller companies to manufacture the devices.
A joint effort similar to what is made by pharmaceutical companies and researchers to produce a vaccine is needed. Pooling and sharing of resources and expertise by top supply chains of the world is the need of the hour.
Kriti Vishwakarma