Canada’s 27,000 Unused Ventilators Cost $807 Million

Plastic-covered ventilators are seen in the hallway at the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg on Dec. 8, 2020. The Canadian Press/Mikaela MacKenzie

Canada’s stockpile of ventilators went from 500 pre-pandemic to 27,000 now. The federal government had awarded multiple contracts to produce ventilators before a dramatic drop in their use at the end of 2020.

The total cost of the ventilators was more than $807 million, Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) told The Canadian Press.

Many of the contracts were awarded in the spring of 2020. Doctors later realized that ventilators were not always good to use for COVID cases, especially for elderly patients with chronic conditions.

Early in the pandemic, the federal government also spent $190 million on four mobile field hospitals. Only one was used for a few dozen patients, and the other three were never used. The government is now spending about $600,000 monthly to store them, PSPC told The Epoch Times in December.

“Without a doubt, I think [procurement] is part of any sort of readiness or preparedness infrastructure but without adequate staff it’s not really useful and we need to emphasize that human resources component more and more,” Dr. Srinivas Murthy, a critical care and infectious diseases specialist in Vancouver, told The Canadian Press.

Murthy said Canada’s push to procure ventilators came when no one knew how the pandemic would proceed. But it takes health care professionals to staff the intensive care units where the machines are used, so that should have been a top priority, she said.

Ontario’s Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk found other pandemic-related waste in provincial government spending in her November 2022 report.

She said $66 million worth of personal protective equipment (PPE) was thrown out due to expired, obsolescent, and damaged items. About half the PPE was from the Business Service Ministry, and about half from the Health Ministry.

PSPC’s plans for continued pandemic-related spending include $135 million listed in its 2022–23 budget estimates.

PSPC spokesperson Stéfanie Hamel told The Epoch Times in December that this money is allotted for costs related to the mobile field hospitals, including their storage. It is also to help PSPC with the government’s pandemic response “more broadly, for the provision of logistics services and procurement services.”

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) says it has learned lessons in how to better prepare for a public health emergency.

“Based on the lessons learned through the COVID-19 pandemic,“ the agency told The Canadian Press, ”PHAC continues to work closely with provinces and territories and other partners to define needs and inform ongoing efforts to prepare for future public health emergencies.”