‘India now has 672 dedicated Covid hospitals’

New Delhi: The Centre’s pre-emptive and graded approach has helped India gradually ramp up its preparedness to fight the Covid-19 pandemic in the country. Since corona cases started reaching late in India compared to many other countries, the government used this time span to improve its health infrastructure. The government has not only set up a large number of dedicated Covid hospitals across the country, it has also increased the number of hospital beds and testing laboratories.

As a result of the gradual efforts, India now has 672 dedicated Covid hospitals with more than 1.07 lakh isolation beds and more than 14,700 ICU beds prepared to deal with any eventuality, in coordination with states. Sources said this number is being augmented continuously. While 196 or around 20% of positive cases on 29 March required critical care or oxygen support, around 42,000 dedicated Covid beds were available.

Luv Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, said that the government is increasing the number of these dedicated hospitals and isolation beds and adequate focus is being given also on properly orienting health staff on various aspects of Covid-19 management, so that they do not face any problems at the field level.
The government has also increased the testing capability. As of now, there are as many as 254 testing laboratories for Covid-19 patients—176 labs in the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) network and 78 private laboratories—with 16,000 collection centres. More than 3 lakh tests have been done so far ever since the outbreak was reported in India.

To expand testing capacity, the government has identified 14 mentor institutes, including institutions of international repute like AIIMS and NIMHANS. These institutes will mentor other government and private medical colleges and help expand the capacity. According to Agarwal, the government’s efforts at present are focused on proper clinical management of positive patients, contact tracing and fool-proof implementation of containment strategy.

In Delhi, AIIMS has developed a dedicated Covid hospital with 270 isolation beds and 150 ICU beds. The Trauma Centre and Burns & Plastic Surgery Block has been used to form a part of the Covid hospital. Safdarjung Hospital has around 400 beds, where an entire block has been dedicated to the treatment of Covid-19, functioning like a dedicated hospital. The Seven Hills Hospital in Mumbai has 100 beds along with ventilators, pacemakers, dialysis machine and patient monitoring devices, negative pressure rooms.

Besides, as many as 9,000 beds have been identified in military hospitals, with capability to augment this by 7,000. The Ordnance Factory Board has manufactured 50 specialised water-proof tents in Arunachal Pradesh, so that patients in far-flung areas of the country can be treated. The Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, too, is contributing to the fight against Covid-19. Indian Railways is working on converting 20,000 coaches into isolation coaches, out of which 5,000 coaches are being converted in the first phase.

Agarwal said that under directions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the government is undertaking a massive national effort in dealing with the evolving situation of the pandemic and is prepared to deal with any eventuality. “We started screening 12-13 days before Covid-19 had been declared as a public health emergency. Our advance action has been a major contributory factor in how we have been able to manage Covid -19,” he added.
The total number of Covid-19 positive cases crossed the 12,000 figure, while death cases have crossed the 400 mark. The fatality rate is 3.3%, while about 12% people have recovered so far. As per information, no Covid-19 cases have been reported from 325 districts, whereas Mahe district in Puducherry has not reported any positive case in the last 30 days. Besides, as many as 27 districts in 17 states have not reported any positive case in the last two weeks.
In a recent development, 5 lakh Rapid Testing Kits have also arrived in India. However, an ICMR official said that the Antibody Test is only to be done for surveillance, trend-checking in hotspots and other areas, that is, epidemiological purposes and not for early diagnosis.