Ludhiana DC Varinder Kumar Sharma said, “One hotel has already given their consent for the same and we hope more such hotels come forward.” (Representational)

IN ORDER to save beds for moderate and critical patients of Covid-19, Ludhiana administration on its own has come up with an idea of offering hotel facility to the asymptomatic patients with no co-morbidities. Many patients are not keen to go for home isolation due to small kids, elders at home or even having an issue of less space at home and at the same time, they don’t even want to go to a government hospital. For such patients, hotel facility has been offered.

On Wednesday night, on the Facebook page of Commissioner of Police, it was mentioned that at times some non-critical corona patients take admission in a Level 3 hospital (super specialty) just to avoid his co-morbid family members or kids from exposure to the virus. They not only block the tertiary care hospital rooms but also end up shelling out substantial amount as hospital bill. “Keeping this in mind, we require hotels to come up and offer their rooms where such persons can check-in and avail home care treatment facility from any tertiary care hospital (like DMC, CMC, Fortis, SPS etc). The person will pay handsomely to the hotel directly, if any hotel wants to be part of this scheme, they can contact us, we will help them tie up with a hospital,” Ludhiana Police Commissioner’s official message said.

Ludhiana DC Varinder Kumar Sharma said, “One hotel has already given their consent for the same and we hope more such hotels come forward.”

Regarding their medical insurance, Ludhiana Police Commissioner’s official message said, “We will try that billing is made by the hospital so that patient can claim the medical insurance as well.”

Patient will be in contact with the doctors of the hospital who will direct them to a particular hotel room and even the staff of the hotel will also be trained on how to maintain standards while Covid-19 patients will be staying in their hotel. Already hotels are having no business and their rooms are lying vacant.

Amarveer Singh, president of Hotel and Restaurant Association said, “We are ready to offer our hotels. Earlier, few hotels had offered them as quarantine centres as well when Punjabis stuck in foreign countries had started turning back, but hardly any response was received that time. Let’s see what happens now.”

Meanwhile, this arrangement had also been offered by Delhi government as they were running out of beds.

Also, Dayanand Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) has converted one Sewa Sadan of Ram Sharnam located nearby DMCH into a Covid ward. Ludhiana DC said, “DMCH wanted Sewa Sadan to be converted into Covid-19 ward and they have done it.”

Sources revealed that it is for Level 1 asymptomatic patients, as Sadan is located close to hospital, medical care can also be provided to patients as and when needed.