Kejriwal, Sisodia inspect the upcoming 700-bed hospital.

The capital crossed the 50,000-mark on Friday with 3,137 new Covid cases being recorded, taking the case count to 53,116. A total of 66 deaths were reported and the death toll is now at 2,035. As many as 13,074 tests were carried out — 12,680 tests were through antigen rapid testing, of which 951 tested positive.

According to the health bulletin, 5,883 patients are admitted to hospitals. Visiting the upcoming 700-bed hospital in Burari, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said “every third bed at the hospital will have oxygen supply for Covid patients”.

The hospital will have 450 beds reserved for Covid cases. “Almost all preparations for Covid treatment has been done here… Around 125 beds already have oxygen supply, and 125 more beds will be provided oxygen through cylinders. I think the establishment of this facility will be another great step in our bid to install more beds to treat corona patients in the city,” he said.

The Delhi government has already issued orders to all Covid hospitals to ensure oxygen availability for beds reserved for Covid patients. “We are procuring over 1,200 cylinders and 2,000 concentrators,” said a senior official.

The new hospital will bolster the existing bed strength in the national capital. As per the Economic Survey of Delhi 2019-20, there are around 12,000 beds in Delhi government hospitals while Centre-run and autonomous institutions have 11,000 beds. A committee formed by Kejriwal early this month had projected that the city will have 5.5 lakh Covid patients by July end, and will need 1.5 lakh beds.

At AIIMS, 990 beds are earmarked for Covid patients at its Delhi and Jhajjar centres The occupancy rate till Friday evening was almost 65%. It is set to add over 300 beds in the coming days. “The beds will be added in a phased manner. We are also planning to increase our capacity in the National Cancer Institute, Jhajjar, and open the burns and plastic surgery block. This will effectively increase capacity for patients as over 200 beds in NCI and 100 beds in the burns block will be added,” said Medical Superintendent Dr D K Sharma, adding that they have sufficient ventilators. “We will augment it further as per the need,” he said.

Similarly, RML, which has 137 beds for Covid patients, has written to the Health Ministry to add 183 more beds. “We have 28 ICU beds with ventilators; other than that, 111 ventilators are available. The request for adding beds has been sent to the Ministry,” said Dr Minakshi Bharadwaj, medical superintendent, RML Hospital.