Updated April 09, 2020 14:16:40

Photo: Many countries have experienced ventilator shortages. (Reuters: Flavio Lo Scalzo)

Australia's intensive care units will have access to 2,000 more ventilators by the end of July, as the Government prepares for the coronavirus epidemic to weigh on the current supply.

A consortium of companies has been enlisted by the Federal Government to produce the invasive ventilators, which offer last-ditch support for patients who are unable to breathe on their own.

All the ventilators will be able to be used in intensive care units.

Industry Minister Karen Andrews said the Government had struck a $31 million agreement with manufacturers to produce the ventilators.

"This deal demonstrates the power of bringing Aussie manufacturers and clinicians together and is also a reflection of the highly advanced manufacturing capability that exists in our country," she said.

"Companies which are normally in competition are working together for the greater good."

Ms Andrews said the ventilators would go into the national stockpile and would then be distributed to states and territories based on need.

Deputy Chief Medical Officer Nick Coatsworth said the move to onshore production of ventilators was "of critical importance".

"This is a major change in our manufacturing capacity within Australia to assist the ventilators that are already being procured," he said.

"We have set ourselves a national target of 7,500, building on the over 4,400 existing ventilators."

Dr Coatsworth said they were well on their way to that target.

He said as well as domestic production, the Government was waiting on the delivery of 500 ventilators from medical supply company Resmed.

Mobilising workforce to care for the critically ill

Dr Coatsworth said work was also being done to mobilise as many health professionals as possible in the effort to take care of coronavirus patients.

"We are looking at every doctor in the country who has capacity to manage an unconscious patient," he said.

"In particular a collaboration between our Colleges of Intensive Care Medicine and College of Anaesthetists to make sure our anaesthetic workforce is able to move into an intensive care environment and assist in helping severely unwell COVID-19 patients."

Dr Coatsworth said the two measures would help to prevent a "bottleneck" of patients in intensive care, putting pressure on resource and staff numbers.

Invasive ventilators work by effectively breathing for patients in a critical condition.

Breaking down the latest news and research to understand how the world is living through an epidemic, this is the ABC's Coronacast podcast.

There are currently more than 2,000 ventilators attached to ICU beds in Australian hospitals, with today's announcement representing a near-doubling of supply.

The consortium responsible for making the ventilators consists of manufacturing and engineering companies and will be led by Victoria-based Grey Innovation.

Executive chair Jefferson Harcourt said he was "overwhelmed by the willingness of our industry colleagues to respond in this critical hour of need".

Supply of the machines will begin in mid-June, with the rollout set to be complete by July.

Australian manufacturing of PPE ramped up

As well as commissioning the production of ventilators, Ms Andrews said work was also underway to produce more personal protective equipment.

"We have increased our manufacturing here in Australia from seven million surgical masks per year to now upwards [of] 200 million masks over a six to nine-month period," she said.

"It's an outstanding effort from our manufacturers."

Ms Andrews said talks to begin manufacturing surgical gowns and other items were ongoing.

While praising Australian manufacturers' abilities to pivot to create pieces currently in high demand, she also said work needed to be done now, and in the future, to bolster domestic supply chains.

"We do have a heavy reliance on overseas and quite frankly that needs to change."

Topics: government-and-politics, infectious-diseases-other, federal-government, health, respiratory-diseases, covid-19, community-and-society, australia

First posted April 09, 2020 11:01:13