Records have unveiled that the Public Health Agency breached its own protocols by auctioning off pristine ventilators, valued at $22,000 each, for a mere $6 as scrap metal, says Blacklock's Reporter.The agency's guidelines strictly prohibited the sale of licensed medical equipment as scrap, yet documents expose a contradictory practice."The devices were sold for parts as a potential divestment option for unlicensed medical equipment," asserted the Agency in a released statement. "These medical devices were no longer authorized for use."However, evidence contradicts this assertion, revealing that the ventilators were auctioned as scrap as recently as February 8, 2023, while still possessing valid licences from the Department of Health. It wasn't until weeks later, on March 22, that these licences were revoked after numerous units had been sold., based in Toronto and the manufacturer of the Canadian Emergency Ventilators, had been awarded a substantial $169.5 million contract in 2020 to supply up to 7,500 devices, equating to approximately $22,600 each. Despite repeated attempts to elicit a response, the company has chosen to remain silent on the matter.These ventilators were part of a rush order totaling $700 million in ventilator acquisitions placed by the Department of Public Works at the onset of the pandemic. Among various manufacturers, a staggering 40,547 ventilators were ordered, with only 27,025 units being delivered. A mere 500 ventilators were put to use, as revealed during testimony before the Commons government operations committee in 2021.Bloc Québécois MP Julie Vignola voiced concerns during the committee session, acknowledging the excessive procurement."We know we ordered too many of them. What if we have to return the surplus of ventilators? Do we get reimbursed at the end of the day for those? I am just concerned with taxpayers’ money," she said.The majority of these ventilators still reside in federal warehouses, with only a fraction — 839 in total — being either donated to hospitals in India, Pakistan, and Nepal, or dispatched to Ukraine as war surplus, according to a March 25 Inquiry Of Ministry presented in the Commons.The StarFish ventilators stand out as the only devices known to have been purchased, delivered, briefly stored in their original packaging, and subsequently sold off as scrap metal. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself had commended StarFish Medical by name in 2020, citing them as a prime example of "manufacturers stepping up in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic."John Walmsley, executive vice-president at StarFish, emphasized the significant investment required in producing these ventilators during his testimony at the 2020 hearings of the Commons industry committee. "This has not been a cheap enterprise," he declared. "We are proud to have answered a national call. Our team will be tired when they are done, but they are not done yet."
