A well-known company in Cornwall has an important role in helping care for the most severe cases of COVID-19.
SigmaPoint Technologies Inc., an electronics manufacturer in Cornwall, is a partner for the production of CAE Air1 ventilators, producing electronic components for the order of 10,000 machines.
Earlier this summer the CAE Air1 Ventilator received Health Canada certification. The ventilator is for hospitals across Canada and to be used in the fight against COVID-19. The certification came two months after CAE signed a contract with the Canadian government to manufacture and supply 10,000 ventilators.
CAE Inc. is one of the country’s aerospace firms, and based in Montreal.
“Since the beginning of the pandemic, CAE was the first to receive certification for an entirely new ventilator,” CAE’s president CEO, Marc Parent, told Medical Device News Magazine earlier this summer.
“I’m proud of our team for rising to this humanitarian challenge and strengthening Canada’s self-sufficiency in the medical field during these unprecedented times.”
CAE is shipping hundreds of the Air1 ventilators to the Government of Canada each week; the device will support ICU patients being treated for COVID-19.
The business department at SigmaPoint on Tuesday confirmed the specific cards for the units have been in production, and that the company is working hard to build a solid partnership with CAE, which could lead to future opportunities.
A ventilator is a machine that moves air into and out of the lungs, delivering breaths to a patient who is physically unable to breathe.
As COVID-19 can result in severe pneumonia that makes it difficult to breathe, the machines can be lifesavers, and early in the outbreak, hospitals were scrambling to acquire more ventilators, with a surge of cases expected. With the possibility of a second wave of cases this fall, capacity is being built up now as to not overwhelm the health-care system later on.
The Air1 ventilator delivers pressure control, volume control, and pressure support ventilation using room air or pressured oxygen.
“I’m glad we were able to support CAE in accelerating the design and manufacturing of (the Air1) ventilator that is now ready to be used by our frontline healthcare workers,” Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry Navdeep Bains said, back when the ventilator was certified.
As the scope of the pandemic became apparent early last spring, a surge of hospitalizations being projected by scientists and health officials, those breathing machines, the ventilators, became a household name.
