Doctors claim that coronavirus patients put on ventilators too early could cause their condition to deteriorate further, rather than help. Scott Weingart, an intensive care doctor in New York, told Stat News that the condition of coronavirus patients worsen "as a direct result of intubation". Doctors are now seriously considering changing their approach on how to use the mechanical ventilator.

While the battle against COVID-19 is still ongoing around the world, United Kingdom hospitals face a shortage of mechanical ventilators with numerous patients suffering from the disease.

The Daily Mail reports that approximately 67 percent of coronavirus patients in the UK who are put on ventilators do not survive.

Meanwhile, in New York City, at least 80 percent of coronavirus patients who have been hooked on a ventilator has died. With New York currently garnering the most COVID-19 cases in the United States, Governor Andrew Cuomo recently estimated that only 20% of coronavirus patients placed on ventilators "will ever come off."

What Do Mechanical Ventilators Do?

Mechanical ventilators use positive pressure to push oxygen into patients whose lungs can't do it for them. The process of hooking a patient to a ventilator involved sticking a tube into the throat or nose with the help of sedation. Patients on ventilators customarily exhale on their own, but sometimes the ventilator helps with that as well.

Deaths in patients put on ventilators are common, no matter what their diagnosis is. Some health officials suggest that forcing pressurized oxygen into the lungs can irritate the organs and cause injury to them. They also propose that using them on patients too early could worsen the inflammation in the lungs.

In a report, USA Today also agrees that ventilators won't fix the disease that caused the patient to be placed on them. A ventilator could only do as much as to 'buy time' until other treatments work or the body overcomes the illness.

More Harm Than Good

When a patient's oxygen level drops, doctors will turn to ventilators as a last resort. However, Stat News reports that terror-stricken doctors are intubating COVID-19 patients sooner because the virus causes their blood oxygen levels to plummet into critical levels.

Dr. Luciano Gattinoni, a world-renowned expert in mechanical ventilation, urged doctors to take caution when diagnosing patients, adding that ventilators should only be used when badly needed and as sparingly as possible.

He said that when lungs deteriorate, the vessels that carry blood through the vital organ shut down. This means that the blood moves to another area that is still functioning well.

However, Dr. Gattinoni believes that some coronavirus patients are not capable of doing this, which is why the blood continues to flow through damaged parts of the lungs.

Because of this, patients may feel nothing wrong and continue to believe that they are breathing fine. However, their blood oxygen levels could unknowingly be dropping.

Dr. Cameron Kyle-Sidell, a critical care doctor in Brooklyn, New York, has also been vocal in social media, where he has called for ventilation techniques to be modified to provide better care for the patients.

On April 1, 2020, Dr. Kyle-Sidell tweeted that protocols regarding the use of mechanical ventilators should change, calling out to his colleagues in the medical field.