Click here to join Express Pune WhatsApp channel and get a curated list of our stories
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
STATE MEDICAL Education Minister Amit Deshmukh said several measures were being taken to set up more isolation beds across the state in addition to step up testing in the event of a severe crisis due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.
Deshmukh also said while measures to upgrade facilities were underway at larger cities like Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur, where there are more cases, the state government was also planning to set up “isolated corridors” connecting to isolation beds in wards of various hospitals in Solapur, Latur, Beed, Aurangabad and smaller cities. “The aim is to set up a separate channel in the same hospital facility,” he said.
In Pune, too, at BJ Medical College and Sassoon General Hospital, space is being earmarked at the new 11-story building for 150 isolation beds and 50 ICU (intensive care unit) beds, said Dr Ajay Chandanwale, Dean of BJ Medical College and Sassoon General Hospital.
According to Sassoon authorities, the capacity can be scaled up to 600 isolation beds and 150 ICU beds. They said a special out-patient department (OPD) was also underway at the building to check for community spread of COVID-19. So far, 40 people were being monitored daily, who were from the city and its outskirts, they added.
While the microbiology department of BJ Medical College also tests samples for COVID-19, at present, it is getting 16 to 17 samples from Naidu hospital. Officials said no sample had tested positive at this centre.
Presently, suspected COVID-19 cases are being admitted to Naidu hospital, run by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), YCM and Bhosari hospitals run by the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation.
Other private hospitals have also reported three persons with COVID-19.
At Symbiosis International Hospital and Research Centre, CEO Dr Vijay Natarajan said they had an isolation ward of 30 beds and a 10-bedded ICU with two ventilators.
He said they could scale up the bed strength to 300 if the situation demanded. Pune District Collector Naval Kishore Ram said they had earmarked approximately 5,000 isolation beds in government and private hospitals in the event of a severe crisis.
“We have also prepared a database of doctors and have been conducting several meetings with private hospitals like Bharati hospital, Deenanath Mangeshkar hospital and others,” Ram said.
