In view of the spike in COVID cases all over Chittoor district, with the daily tally hovering around 1,000, the district administration has initiated steps to set up ‘mini-COVID Care Centres’ at all assembly constituencies and mandal headquarters in a phased manner.
50-100 beds
While the usual COVID Care Centres can accommodate more than 3,000 patients, mini centres can accommodate 50-100 patients at a time. At present, Vishnu Nivasam and Padmavathi Nilayam in Tirupati and RVS College in Chittoor city are the three centres in the district.
Now, with the mini centres in mandals, there would be no need to shift patients to Tirupati, thereby avoiding the risk of further spread of infection, said Deputy District Medical and Health Officer(DMHO) P. Ravi Raju said.
SW hostels being identified
“As per the instructions from the District Collector, the COVID task force teams are involved in identifying social welfare hostels to convert them as mini-COVID Care Centres. Those who do not have enough facilities for isolating at home would be taken to these centres, while those with co-morbidities would be shifted to the COVID hospitals in their respective areas,” the DMHO said.
The official said that about 2,000 beds were now available with the government hospitals, including SVIMS and SVRR Hospitals in Tirupati, district hospital at Chittoor and area hospitals at Kuppam, Madanapalle and Srikalahasti, in addition to 1,480 beds available with private hospitals.
“To meet the rising demand, we have taken steps to arrange five beds with oxygen support in each COVID Care Centre This is to prevent casualties among patients at care centres due to breathlessness, before shifting them to hospitals,” Dr. Ravi Raju said.
Meanwhile, the district administration in coordination with the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams(TTD) has launched measures to set up a 1000-bed COVID Care Centre at Srinivasam Complex in Tirupati.
Active cases nearing 10,000
District Collector M. Hari Narayanan said that at present there were 9,481 active cases in the district.