GHAZIABAD: The
district administration on Sunday said that adequate arrangements have been made and more than 1,000 beds have been readied to deal with a possible surge in the number of
Covid-19 cases this month. With festivities round the corner, heath workers are gearing up for a spike in numbers.
Officials said three Covid L1 hospitals —
SRM University (350 beds), IMS College (400 beds) and Divyajyoti Ayurvedic Hospital (350 beds) — are ready with a total of 1,100 beds.
At present, none of the L1 hospitals in the district are functional as most patients are either in home isolation or have been admitted to government and private L2 and L3 Covid facilities.
The health department has been directed to conduct 4,000 tests per day and increase it to 6,000 if needed. The number of rapid response and surveillance teams are being increased now.
There are two government L2 hospitals – the District Combined Hospital (100 beds) and ESIC Hospital (76 beds) — and 12 private Covid facilities in the district with a total of 800 beds. Among them, there are 168 ICU beds and 1,021 beds have direct oxygen supply. There are 43 ventilators in government hospitals and 45 in private hospitals across the district. Nine high flow nasal cannulas are also available for Covid patients.
District magistrate Ajay Shankar Pandey said: "Currently, we have enough medicines to treat about 1,000 patients. Now, 15 rapid response teams are working to cover all patients in home isolation, and this number could be raised to 25 in case of emergencies. Teams engaged in surveillance will be increased to 1,000 from the current 861. We are fully prepared to deal with emergencies."
Pandey added that instructions have been given to every department to make arrangements for regular sanitisation of their respective offices.
The administration also plans to carry out awareness drives in markets and public places.
The state-appointed nodal officer, Senthil Pandian C, had recently directed district officials to focus to on aggressive IEC (information, education and communication) campaign to drive home the message that the risk of catching Covid infection is still there as many cities are seeing a surge in the number of cases.