Why is Zydus not a Covid hospital?

When 42 private hospitals – big, medium and small – in Ahmedabad have been converted into Covid treatment facilities by Gujarat govt, what is stopping AMC from converting the best hospital in city into Covid facility, ask hospitals

When Ahmedabad is amongst the biggest Covid hotspots in the country and Gujarat second only to Maharashtra in terms of coronavirus cases and deaths, the city’s best hospital – Zydus Hospital – has failed to garner the attention of the State government in converting it into a Covid-19 hospital. This when 42 private hospitals – big, medium and small – have been converted into Covid treatment facilities by Gujarat government.

Now, some of these private hospitals are demanding that Zydus too be converted into a Covid hospital like them.

According to these hospitals, under the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, if the government can force them to abide by this order then why is the same yardstick not been applied on Zydus, which has a 500-bed facility and can accommodate more patients than the small and mid-size hospitals.

A hospital owner in Navrangpura area, pleading anonymity said, “Just because we are a small hospital and don’t have political connections, we are forced to be converted into a Covid hospital? Can the government do the same thing with Zydus?”

Another hospital in the Paldi said, “Zydus is a multi-speciality hospital and has all kinds of facilities to handle any emergency in case of Covid-19 patients. It makes more sense to have a bigger facility with more beds at one place instead of having multiple hospitals with fewer facilities.”


Members of the Ahmedabad Hospitals and Nursing Home Association (AHNA) are of the opinion, “Of the 42 hospitals shortlisted by AMC, many are small and located in commercial buildings. This makes it inconvenient for the building occupants as their common facilities will be used by the Covid patients and hospitals. To avoid such awkward and impractical situations, AMC can acquire bigger hospitals like Zydus which have been left out when needed the most.”

Sources attribute it to their political connections that they have conveniently got away from providing any Covid facility.

When asked why Zydus has been left out, Dr Rajiv Gupta Gupta (IAS), who has been given the charge of Ahmedabad to oversee Covid-19 situation, he had said, “This is the first list and if required we will include them too in the Covid list.”

Giving their side of the story, Director of Zydus Hospital Dr V N Shah told Mirror, “We have about 500 beds in Zydus Hospital, of which 100 beds are occupied. Moreover, we get around 300 OPDs and conduct 10 to 20 surgeries daily. All these are non-Covid patients.”

He added, “Likewise, our cancer hospital has around 100-bed capacity and we get about 100 patients daily for chemotherapy, radiation and positron emission tomography (PET) scan. With such high comorbid patients at both the hospitals who need urgent treatments, where will they go?”