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Open source ventilator? Time for us to make it happen.

Looks like a lot of molded plastic parts from what I have seen. Would an old fashioned iron lung work? I think those would be easier to quickly produce as more places would have the equipment to make them.
 
Basing them on C-Pap machines would give people a head start on sanitary, humidified air pressure source, and somewhat of a mask... if the pressures, etc. are appropriate (which I have no clue.) That leaves the valve/timer stuff. C-Paps are around $100 - $300 on CL around here.
 
Got a plan for the FDA certification?

These are pretty sophisticated devices- they have to be tuned for the individual patient, and constantly monitored and adjusted.

They go through a lot of testing before they get approved for medical use.
 
Got a plan for the FDA certification?

These are pretty sophisticated devices- they have to be tuned for the individual patient, and constantly monitored and adjusted.

They go through a lot of testing before they get approved for medical use.

Ventilator/Respirator Hardware and
Software Design Specification

https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/application-note/DRM127.pdf

Seems pretty complicated. Then there's all the regulatory hoops to jump through.

If you want to jury rig something with basic function I bet you could do it with a blower and a Raspberry Pi.

Or yeah, just use a CPAP. As is, no mods. Most are technically BiPAP machines.

Sigh....

I feel Ive shit the bed according to you guys.
And thats fine and well.

What do you do when you have a loved one that is refused at the local hospital?
Right, I'm going to look strictly for an FDA approved device.

No, I'm suggesting a community sourced device that is affordable, open source.
 
Got a plan for the FDA certification?
.
Here is the stumbling block.
Do your own and if one person dies, got that 10 million for the lawsuit? That will come.
All great to want to help. Lawyers do not care about that good will on your part.
Medical is a minefield that we have built. This tis our system.
People who build things in this field know that you will be sued often, like several times per month as a small place, more if a bigger.
The deal is that you sue everyone in the line, ready for that in your one to ten man shop? Have insurance on that?

The whole we want to help is great, the legal side a nightmare. You may save 100s of people or more. And then one comes and takes everything you ever owned.
No doubt US manufacturing can fix and fill this in a short time, but one dead person your fault or not, kiss your shop goodbye.

People who do medical understand. This is not making parts for cars, guns, tanks or building airplanes in a war.

Yes we could do much as small shops but the system in place is sitting there.
Bob
 
My wife and I each have a CPAP. If we get the crud and can't get proper treatment we can stay home and use them. If my folks get it and can't get proper treatment we can sanitize our CPAPs and let them use them. They have a BiPAP mode, adjustable pressure settings, humidity control...

And I was serious about improvising one with a Raspberry Pi and blower if you have to. Do it for you and yours and you're probably fine. Do one for a stranger and you're taking a huge legal risk.
 
Do you understand how a ventilator is used? How are you going to intubate your loved one? Do it wrong and the patient dies. Right then and there. How are you going to run anesthesia? How are you going to even GET anesthesia drugs?

This isn't a cpap. It's a tube semi-surgically placed in their airway. This isn't an iron lung. You can't do it outside a hospital setting.

Obviously this isn't comprehensive, but do you have ANYTHING mentioned on this page?

Drugs to Aid Intubation - Critical Care Medicine - Merck Manuals Professional Edition
 
What do you do when you have a loved one that is refused at the local hospital?
Right, I'm going to look strictly for an FDA approved device.

No, I'm suggesting a community sourced device that is affordable, open source.
I didn't notice you're in Ontario, so you don't have to worry about FDA certification.

I'm sorry, but if a loved one needs to be on a ventilator she's in acute respiratory distress, and a homemade ventilator is not going to help her. Can you intubate someone, monitor lung pressures, brain oxymetry, make the necessary adjustments to the machine while monitoring vitals, etc?

It's like 5-man job.
 
I didn't notice you're in Ontario, so you don't have to worry about FDA certification.

I'm sorry, but if a loved one needs to be on a ventilator she's in acute respiratory distress, and a homemade ventilator is not going to help her. Do you know how to intubate someone, monitor lung pressures, brain oxymetry, make the necessary adjustments to the machine while monitoring vitals, etc?

It's like 5-man job.

People used iron lungs at home, how did a new modern machine turn operating itself into a "5 MAN JOB?"
 
People used iron lungs at home, how did a new modern machine turn operating itself into a "5 MAN JOB?"
Modern medicine, I guess. Iron lungs created a vacuum and the patient could inhale naturally. Ventilators today pressurize the lungs directly, with a tube in each lung.

The patient is in the ICU for a reason, and if they're on a ventilator it takes more monitoring. If they don't need a ventilator, they're not in the ICU...
 
Put me in a iron lung for long.
At what point is that living and can I reach the off switch?
What would you do? The family and wife crying .
Ideally me and SWMBO die on the same day.but that never seems to work out.
In one side of my grandparents it was less than six months. The old english Cornwall couple linked at the hip.
Bob
 
Ries was right on the other thread when he said we need to do better at stockpiling this type of stuff. We have a National Security Stockpile, and it includes ventilators, but we may need a lot more.

It was drawn down in 2009, and it's been said that it wasn't fully replenished.
 
People used iron lungs at home, how did a new modern machine turn operating itself into a "5 MAN JOB?"

You two are talking about two different things. Iron lungs were used at home because the person did not need the intensive care unit (outside of a ventilator). Today, people use ventilators at home (non-iron lungs).

Being in the intensive care unit on a ventilator is a ‘5 man job’ because the person is in the intensive care unit and not the ventilator itself.
 
School friend of mine mother was in an iron lung,just up the road ....with polio ,there were plenty of people in them.Just something that happened.My old man got polio in North Africa,was expected to come back in an iron lung ,but all happened was a collapsed ankle.Which he recovered enough from to be manpowered into the small ships ,a paid civilian employee of the US Army.
 
Put me in a iron lung for long.
At what point is that living and can I reach the off switch?
What would you do? The family and wife crying .
Ideally me and SWMBO die on the same day.but that never seems to work out.
In one side of my grandparents it was less than six months. The old english Cornwall couple linked at the hip.
Bob

Supposedly a couple people have lived in them for 60 years. I have a friend in High School whose grandparents died a week apart. They were in their mid 80's the grandpa died last and he was perfectly healthy. Grandma had been in poor health for a while.
 
I do think much of the virus response in this country is overblown and ineffective. I believe there will be more deaths from unintended consequences than from covid 19 itself and the collateral damage to the economy will be vastly greater than the direct effects of covid 19.

That said, there is an interview with a doctor in Italy in one of the hardest hit regions. Lack of room and resources has forced doctors to decide who has a shot at care and who dies.
 
So, would an iron lung help the Corona-virus patient that has trouble breathing or would it interfere with other portions of the treatment?
 
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