This Made-In-India Defibrillator Can Save Lives of Heart Patients Even During Power Cuts

According to the Global Burden of Disease study, cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of deaths in India. The country’s estimated age-standardized CVD death rate at 272 per 100 000 population is higher than the global average of 235 per 100 000 population.

In most cases, the cause of death is related to the lack of access to immediate medical care and moreover, the absence of life saving technology in small and medium sized hospitals for the masses.

A study by Venture Centre in Pune shows over one billion of the 1.3 Billion Population do not have easy access to a defibrillator. It is an electronic device that gives a high energy electric shock to the heart through the chest wall to revive a patient in cardiac arrest. This process of administering the high energy shock is called defibrillation, and is an life saving step to help the patient survive.

Also, the lack of reliable electric supply in remote areas make it difficult to make defibrillators work which need batteries and chargers at all times, since emergencies don’t come announced. Over 25% of these tested defibrillators fail to work due to battery charge issues or other electrical problems reports the study.

So, a team of innovators in Pune have developed a hand-cranked defibrillator, which can save cardiac arrest patients without electricity.

This low-cost life saving device only requires the administrator to power it up in less than 12 seconds by rotating a small hand paddle. While the price of electricity powered defibrillators at airports and hospitals are skyrocketing, this made-in-India defibrillator costs less than a quarter of the same amount.

Speaking to NDTV as they launched the device on World Heart Day on 29th September, Ashish Gawade, director of Jeevtronics Private Limited, that developed the dual powered defibrillator said,

“We have developed the world’s first hand-cranked defibrillator that would be useful in places that do not have reliable electric supply. From the social impact point of view we want to cut the death rate due to heart attacks by three or four times, bringing it to levels similar to developed countries.”

He added that his team was inspired by management guru CK Prahalad to develop this device in a short span of four years.

We hope this device reaches the nooks and corners of India where immediate medical access and affordable lifesaving technology is a distant reality and helps revive many hearts, literally.

Read more: Bahinabai: This Farmer-Poet Was Illiterate, yet She Has Life Lessons for Us All to Live By!

Watch how the defibrillators work here:

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