HYDERABAD: Inspired by China’s overnight development of hospitals with huge intake, the K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR)-led TRS government in Telangana has decided to convert around 40,000 double bedroom houses built for weaker sections into isolation care wards for coronovirus suspects, if necessary. Each house can take two suspects, as more cases were reported in the last one week.
KCR, who chaired a meeting of the emergency situation triggered by the spate of cases reported at the state-run Gandhi Hospital in Secunderabad this week, directed officials to gear up to meet the possible demand from possible patients of Covid-19 in the coming days. The Union health ministry has warned the states against slackness while dealing with the medial situation in the country.
Initially, around 30 beds were earmarked at Gandhi Hospital, for coronavirus isolation ward, but it was soon fully occupied and another 100 extra beds were readied to meet the rush which is increasing as more suspects of the infection were sent here from the the Shamshabad International Airport. Currently, around 300 patients are placed here while a few of them were sent home as their samples were negative.
After the Centre declared at least one case of coronavirus at Hyderabad’s Gandhi Hospital, panic buttons were pressed among the public and more came here for testing. A person returned from Iran through Bangalore airport travelled to Hyderabad by bus and got admitted at Gandhi Hospital for his treatment. One more case has been added and they are now kept at the isolation ward.
Though their samples sent to the government testing laboratories in Pune turned out to be negative, another round of samples were sent for second testing. Besides, many people with reported symptoms of flu and fever from neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, too, are coming to Gandhi Hospital here and seeking medical help.
At one stage, the government sought the help of private hospitals in Hyderabad and they readily agreed to set up isolation wards, to accommodate around 2,000 patients. These patients would be kept at isolation wards for two weeks, until two, three rounds of samples report negative. They will be discharged only after two weeks, as per guidelines of the Union health ministry. There is a space constraint for more additional beds in regular hospitals as normal patients cannot be kept alongside those of Covid-19. The medical and health department has been sanitising the areas of the virus suspects in the city. For example, all the colonies where the houses of 88 persons who travelled with the patient who returned from Bangalore were sprayed chemicals as precautionary measure.
Then, at another round of meeting chaired by Chief Minister KCR, it was decided to convert the entire ready to occupy double bedroom houses—as many as 40,000—into isolation wards for Covid-19 patients, if necessary. “Each house can take two patients and they are away from other habitations,” Etela Rajender, Telangana Medical and Health Minister, told this newspaper. This decision has been informed to the Centre. The World Health Organization’s guidelines state that these isolation wards should be somewhat away from other normal patients and the doctors treating them, too, should be specially identified. The availability of 80,000 beds may not be needed for the isolation wards, but it only indicates the readiness of the Telangana government, officials explained.
This capacity can be utilised by other states or the Centre, an official said. There is a sort of curfew-type atmosphere in Hyderabad as most of the public places wore a deserted look, with cinema halls and shopping malls recording poor footfalls. Many parks are shut and tourist spots were shut temporarily, due to lack of visitors. The spread of rumours of more people getting infected by Covid-19 has become a menace, even as the official machinery took extra measures to dispel doubts on this. “We have launched a massive publicity campaign on educating people that there no need to panic. This coronavirus is not a killer disease and it is curable and the government is ready to tackle it,” Rajender told this newspaper.
Some IT companies have allowed their employees to work from home for this weekend, but there were rumours that the entire H-Tech City, which has around 3,000 small and big IT and software firms, has been shut, which is not true, the minister said. Telangana’s IT Secretary Jayesh Ranjan too held talks with the IT sector heads to check these rumours.
The police has booked criminal cases against two persons for spreading falsehood on the social media exaggerating the situation in Hyderabad. One of them, claiming to be an expert of Covid-19, appeared on some TV channels and recommended some bogus treatment. “The problem is with rumours, not with the actual virus threat,” a senior doctor at the Gandhi Hospital said.