(Bloomberg) -- An idea from a Norwegian oil engineer will help the Nordic country double the number of respirators in its hospitals to treat covid-19 patients.
The emergency respirator was developed in only three weeks and production is due to start imminently, Prime Minister Erna Solberg said at a press conference on Tuesday. Norway currently has less than 700 such machines.
Engineer and entrepreneur Eivind Gransaether came up with the idea, which was then developed by the Norwegian Defense Research Institute and private businesses Laerdal Medical AS and Servi AS. The Norwegian government has guaranteed funding for the project and ordered 1,000 respirators, some of which might ultimately be exported.
Solberg, a staunch supporter of the oil industry in western Europe's biggest producing nation, said the initiative was a testament to Norway's ability to adapt to new challenges.
“In a crisis situation, oil and defense were swapped for health, because that's what our country needs,” she said. “The consequences of both the corona epidemic and the climate crisis will require us to find new, better and smarter ways to do things.”
Medical Criticism
Yet the head of the Norwegian Nurses Organization criticized the initiative, saying the new machine was inadequate and that the most pressing issue facing Norway's intensive-care capacity was a lack of staff. The emergency respirator is “a machine that could have been invented in 1950 and might have helped polio patients,” Lill Sverresdatter Larsen said on the union's website.
“This isn't emergency aid from the government,” she said. “This is ignorance disguised as action.”
Health authorities have estimated that Norway may need to handle between 600 and 1,200 intensive-care patients at a time as the coronavirus spreads. The country has registered 4,447 cases, and currently has 107 patients in intensive care, while 28 people have died.
The rate of new hospitalizations is now slowing, which suggests Norway's restrictive measures, including school closures and bans on large gatherings, are working, Solberg said.
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