Hungary has been trying to find a solution for the 12,000 Chinese-made ventilators purchased hastily during the COVID-19 pandemic but never used. The ventilators have been sitting in warehouses and, despite attempts to sell or auction them off, they have remained a burdensome cost for the government. But officials may have found a solution: providing them to sleep apnea patients.
In the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, Hungary scrambled to procure enough ventilators to meet anticipated demand, spending 300 billion Hungarian forints, around 845 million dollars, on Chinese ventilators. By May 2020, Hungary had invested in 16,000 ventilators, significantly more than the country’s requirements. Only around 2,000 to 2,500 were needed at the peak of the crisis.
In addition to the surplus, the Chinese-made ventilators purchased did not meet the Hungarian or European Union standards; without CE certification, many could not be used in hospitals. Some also ran on software that was unknown to Hungarian experts or required additional parts that could not be acquired in Hungary.
In June 2021, to manage the surplus, Hungary donated tens of thousands of ventilators to nations in need, especially in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. But the vast majority of them were left in warehouses, unused, and the government has been unable to sell them even at a fraction of the price.
Another possible solution to bid them off in February was unsuccessful. The Hungarian Judicial Execution Service organized an auction for nearly 800 ventilators after the foreign ministry took action against TMT Technics Ltd., the company that had been tasked with procuring ventilators in 2020 and has now gone bankrupt.
The foreign ministry aimed to recover part of the approximately 4 billion forints (11 million dollars) advance paid by the company during the procurement process. TMT Technics Ltd. failed to fully account for the funds received and, unable to repay the debt, the owners have liquidated the company.
But this does not resolve the issue of 12,000 unused ventilators still sitting in storage. When questioned by 24.hu, an independent Hungarian media outlet often critical of the government, about the fate of the machines following the unsuccessful auction, the ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade did not respond to the inquiry.
A solution for sleep apnea patients
24.hu reported that the state secretary for Health, Péter Takács, said at the People’s Welfare Committee on April 16 that the government, in collaboration with the Bay Zoltán Research Institute, a non-profit organization, is now investigating how the ventilators can be transformed into devices suitable for treating sleeping disorders. Takács is optimistic that a significant part of the ventilators can be converted into support for sleep apnea patients.
Takács said that because the machines purchased were of different skill levels, some of the less advanced ones were suitable for non-invasive respiratory support.
Takács explained the government’s decision, stating that, although it is important to be prepared for another Covid mutation, the “epidemiological situation” does not justify keeping such a large number of ventilators in stock.
Around 77,000 patients suffer from sleep apnea in Hungary, a disorder in which the person’s breathing stops periodically during sleep, whether due to obstruction as the muscles relax or because the brain fails to send proper signals to the muscles that control breathing.
Allegations of corruption
In addition to dealing with such a large number of ventilators in stock, Hungary has also had to deal with a subject of controversy due to allegations of overpricing and a non-transparent procurement process of ventilators. TMT Technics, for example, failed to submit a balance sheet for the three months that saw a revenue jump from 113 million to 18.5 billion forints from the sales of ventilators.
Investigations revealed that Hungary paid far more than the market price for the ventilators, making the worst deal in the entire European Union, according to international trade data analyzed by Direkt36, an online media that investigates political corruption in Hungary. The entire procurement process was accused of being “as hasty as it was sloppy, and suspected of massive corruption.”
A transparency investigation into a Malaysian company, GR Technologies, that sold nearly 6,300 ventilators to Hungary also revealed that all documentation related to the purchase was shredded once Transparency International began its investigation.
