Noida: Gautam Budh Nagar district magistrate on Monday recommended to the director general of medical education and training, Lucknow, to provide 340 additional
Covid beds for
Sharda Hospital. This is in addition to the 380
beds notified for the facility last month. Apart from that, 200 Covid beds will be added at the Noida International Institute of Medical Sciences (NIIMS), officials said.
Currently, the district has two government Covid facilities — 250-bed Government Institute of Medical Sciences (GIMS), Greater Noida, and 168-bed Noida Covid Hospital (NCH), Sector 39. While GIMS has an 80-bed ICU, NCH has 38 ICU beds. NCH also has 200 additional beds on standby. Both hospitals currently have an occupancy rate of 85-90% and with more patients seeking hospitalisation, officials said, efforts are on to prepare additional beds.
The private hospitals that are engaged in Covid treatment in the district are Yatharth, Prakash, Fortis, Kailash and Jaypee. They have a total of 871 beds, including more than 240 ICU/HDU beds. On Monday, another private facility, 40-bed Indo Gulf Hospital, Sector 19, was asked to start Covid treatment. In total, the six private hospitals will have more than 200 ICU beds.
“I held a meeting with health department officials and representatives of private hospitals on Sunday and Monday. The two government facilities are almost full. Last month, the state government had notified 380 beds for Sharda Hospital in Greater Noida. I have recommended the DGME, Lucknow, for 340 additional beds. The hospital will have 720 Covid beds in total. I have requested for 200 beds at NIIMS as well. The DGME will direct the two hospitals to arrange for the beds,” said Suhas LY, the district magistrate.
According to the state government, rates of all Covid beds will remain the same as recommended by Dr Vinod Paul Committee last year.
The DM said in Gautam Budh Nagar, more than 50% Covid beds are currently occupied by people from outside the district. “This is because the situation is worse in places like Kanpur, Lucknow, Varanasi, Ghaziabad and Delhi,” he said.
But arranging for the beds might not be easy. “We had demarcated the fourth floor of our hospital building for Covid care and initially, 150 beds were readied, of the total 380. But our payment of Rs 9 crore is still pending clearance. As a result, we will have to look for other vendors for supplies,” said Dr Ajit Kumar, spokesperson, Sharda
Hospital.
In another development, the National Health Mission, Uttar Pradesh, approved contract renewals of staff and paramedics at NCH.