Health Canada Can’t Find Documents for 7,500 Scrapped Ventilators Worth $22,000 Each

Health Canada Unable to Locate Documents for 7,500 Discontinued Ventilators Valued at $22,000 Each

April 23, 2024 TruthUSA

Health Canada has stated that it cannot locate documents related to the purchase of ventilators valued at $22,000 each, which were later sold as scrap metal. This has led to accusations from a Conservative MP that the lack of information is either due to “incompetence or corruption.”

Tory MP Cheryl Gallant expressed her concerns, saying, “I don’t understand why they would do this. It sounds like a shotgun approach to procurement.”

Ms. Gallant’s constituent, paramedic Luke Halstead of Petawawa, Ont., purchased numerous ventilators that were eventually auctioned as scrap metal by the Department of Public Works. Ms. Gallant commended him for bringing this issue to light.

StarFish Medical of Toronto, the manufacturer of the ventilators, was awarded a $169.5 million sole-sourced contract in 2020 to deliver up to 7,500 devices. The company has declined to comment on the sale.

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On April 18, Health Canada stated that they have no documents pertaining to the StarFish purchase, despite having licensed the devices for use.

An official from Health Canada mentioned, “Having completed a thorough search we regret to inform you we were unable to locate any records,” based on reports from Blacklock’s.

Additionally, another company named CAE received a $282.5 million contract for ventilators that failed federal tests twice, while a third contractor, Thornhill Medical, was paid $200.5 million for ventilators that Health Canada later rejected.

No parliamentary committee has yet scrutinized the pandemic ventilator program where sole-sourced contracts worth more than $700 million were awarded to selected manufacturers.

The ventilators were eventually auctioned off during a three-month period that concluded in early 2023, and were subsequently sold as scrap metal for as little as $6 per unit.

When the COVID-19 pandemic began, many countries rushed to acquire enough ventilators to assist those affected by the virus. However, with the finding that elderly patients did not respond well to ventilators, and the advent of COVID-19 vaccines, ventilator usage decreased by late 2020.

By June 2022, over 40,000 ventilators ordered by the government earlier in the pandemic remained unused in the federal emergency stockpile, with only a fraction of them deployed in Canada or abroad.

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