MYSURU: Health and family welfare minister K Sudhakar on Thursday reviewed the
Covid situation in Mysuru, which has second highest number of positive cases after Bengaluru. He asked officials to be prepared for a rise in the number of cases in the next two weeks.
He visited several hospitals and supervised the facilities available.
While he asserted that there is no shortage of beds with oxygen supply, he asked officials to scale up health infrastructure, mainly at the taluk level to ensure Mysuru hospitals do not get crowded.
During his interaction with health authorities he got to know that the Mysuru District Hospital, the designated
Covid hospital in the city, lacks anaesthesiologists. Sudhakar, who also holds medical education portfolio, asked the
Mysuru Medical College and Research Institute director to depute them from
Krishnarajendra Hospital.
While Mysuru has close to producing four-digit positive cases— it was 975 on Wednesday — coupled with over 4,600 active cases, the health authorities are worried over the positivity rate. Sudhakar asked the authorities to scale up beds with oxygen supply at taluk level hospitals to reduce pressure on Mysuru hospitals. He asserted that there is no shortage of beds in hospitals in Mysuru hospitals to treat Covid cases.
He said there are 30,000 beds with oxygen supply in the state and efforts are on to increase them. The government has put in place a plan to attend to the health crisis, he told reporters. He said there are 250 beds at the Covid Hospital while 50% of the beds at
KR Hospital are reserved for Covid cases.
“We have asked private hospitals to reserve ventilators and oxygen beds for Covid cases,” he said adding that additional Group-C and Group-D employees will be assigned to the Covid hospital.
Meanwhile, Mysuru district minister ST Somashekar said the district administration is not allowing people from Kerala to enter the state unless they produce Covid negative certificate.
He admitted that positive patients from other parts of the state, including Bengaluru, are coming to Mysuru for treatment. “While we cannot stop it, we are focusing on scaling up the infrastructure,” he said, even as he stressed on the vaccination drive to control the spread of the virus.