The Minister of Health has tried to allay concerns that the Isle of Man does not have enough ventilators.

David Ashford was speaking at the daily press conference about the coronavirus pandemic earlier today.

The Isle of Man has just six ventillators, which might be necessary for the most severely affected patients.

The UK has about 6,000 ventilators and is attempting to make 20,000 more.

Mr Ashford said: ’We are part of the NHS supply chain. The UK is undertaking a huge drive.

’It’s not the case that we’re not looking to get more. We are engaging with NHS Supply so we can piggyback off what they’re doing in the UK.

’I want to allay fears that we’re saying "what we’ve got is what we’ve got" and we’re looking at other options.’

He added that the department had been contacted by firms off island and on island to help.

There are fears that the use of ventilators might be rationed by age.

Mr Ashford said: ’We are not at that stage. In some countries, like Italy there have had to be life-and-death decisions made based on someone’s survival factor.

’We are doing everything in our power to make sure we are not in that stage.

’That’s why we have announced the package of measures we have done this week to make sure we put the island in the best position we possibly can.’

Medical director Rosalind Ranson said the department was planning to increase the number of ventilators to 10.

She said: ’There has been a huge amount of work at Noble’s to meet the [potential] demand from the public.

’We have the slight advantage of seeing what’s happened across Europe and the world, so we can model and anticipate what we are going to encounter.’

She said that it was the public who were going to influence the spread of the virus through self isolation, social distancing and hand washing.

The Manx health service had limited capacity, she added.

’We have limited staff,’ she said. ’It’s not about getting more ventilators because you need the staff.

’In order to have the staff, you need to keep the staff well. So we are calling for the public of the Isle of Man to assist us.

’It’s so important that the public is aware of the steep curve and how easy it is to overwhelm the health service, which is what happened in Italy.’