COVID-19 Pune: Rural health infrastructure being ramped up with 500 hospital beds in every taluka

Pune: In view of rising COVID-19 cases in rural areas of Pune, the district administration has decided to ramp up the rural healthcare infrastructure by adding an average of 500 hospital beds in each taluka in the coming days.

District Collector Naval Kishor Ram made this announced in a press conference on Monday (August 3). Ram said, “Along with the increased hospital beds, private doctors are also being recruited and deployed at these facilities. We have got 106 MBBS doctors – who were earlier engaged in private practices – and now are working at taluka places. We are collating information about doctors willing to serve in the rural areas and so far the response has been very good. Remuneration for these doctors has also been fixed and it is competitive as compared with urban areas.”

Collector Ram said, “Apart from the jumbo hospital facilities being set-up by the district administration, we are upgrading the infrastructure at Sassoon hospital and Aundh hospital immediately as the number of Covid-19 cases in rural areas of the district are increasing every day. Along with the government-run hospitals, we are also ramping up the infrastructure at taluka places with 500 hospitals beds being arranged in every taluka of Pune district. I can assure you that there will not be a hospital bed shortage once these existing facilities get upgraded as we are adding 800 beds capacity.”

In this media interaction, Divisional Commissioner Saurabh Rao added that “Apart from this arrangement, the state government has spent around Rs 65 crore on upgrading the Covid-19 treatment facilities and hiring of super-specialists at the government-run Sassoon General Hospital meant for treating patients coming from the entire district area.”

Rao further stated that the Aundh hospital will have 90 hospital beds reserved for COVID-19 patients out of the total 310 beds. At present the hospital has only 40 beds reserved for COVID patients. Also Sassoon hospital at present has 446 beds reserved for Covid-19 patients, but this count will be increased to 850 up to August 10.