COVID-19: Delhi govt automatically renews licences of nursing homes till March 2021

NEW DELHI: Providing respite to nursing home owners in the national capital, the Delhi government has decided to automatically renewal their licenses till March, 2021. After a meeting held with several representatives and owners of nursing homesin the city, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal gave the order to the health department to immediately renew the licenses of the nursing homes.

During the meeting, the owners of the nursing homes flagged the issue that every year there is a need to renew the license to run these nursing homes. This year, due to the COVID pandemic some of the nursing homes could not renew their license after the month of March which is creating issues in the operations of these nursing homes.

In this meeting, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain was also present. RK Gupta, ex-president of Delhi Medical Association said, “The Delhi government has taken commendable measures during the time of Corona, and have honoured the private and government hospital and health care workers. The meeting with the nursing home owners was successful”. 

President of Delhi Medical Council, Arun Gupta also said “This will provide immediate relief to the nursing home owners. We are happy that the chief minister took this decision.” 

​With the number of coronavirus cases once again increasing in the national capital Chief Minister Kejriwal has decided to increase testing facilities in the city. The current target is to conduct 40,000 tests per day. Nursing homes have played a vital role during this pandemic. 

With fresh cases having increased to around 2,000 daily, nursing homes have ensured that hopsitals and other healthcare facitlities are not overburdened with patients.

AIIMS suspends its OPD services

As COVID-19 cases continue to surge, the All India Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on Wednesday announced suspension of the Outpatient Department (OPD) admissions in general and private wards for the next two weeks. 

According to an order issued by the Medical Superintendent Dr DK Sharma, the decision was taken to reserve beds for seriously ill, emergency/semi-emergency Covid-19 patients in light of the spike in virus infections over the past week. 

“Emergency and semiemergency patients requiring hospitalisation or those advised hospitalisation will continue to be admitted along with Employees Health Scheme patients,” AIIMS said in a statement. The demand for beds has subsequently also gone up in the city.