Toronto company expands ventilator production tenfold to meet demand

One of the companies making ventilators for the federal government is expanding its production capacity more than tenfold to meet demands posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thornhill Medical CEO Lesley Gouldie says normally her Toronto-based company would produce at most 50 ventilators in a month but is hoping to deliver more than 1,000 to the federal government, and another 40 to Ontario directly, over the next two months.

The company partnered with Linamar, a Guelph, Ont.-based manufacturer of auto parts, which is helping it find all the materials it needs and producing some of the machines in its own facilities.

The company is fielding requests from “every continent” but Gouldie says it will answer Canadian demand first and then work on international orders.

Gouldie says Thornhill shipped out eight ventilators to Ontario last week.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday the government was working with multiple Canadian companies to produce as many as 30,000 new ventilators, although the purchase order for 1,020 from Thornhill Medical is the only signed contract at the moment.

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