50-bed Covid unit to open at Salt Lake stadium this weekend

KOLKATA: AMRI Hospital Salt Lake is ready to open its satellite Covid facility in a portion of Salt Lake stadium starting with about 50 beds from this weekend. This facility, being set up on the youth hostel premises of the stadium, will have provisions for oxygen. However, there won’t be any HDU or ICU beds as such.
“We are trying to work out a process so that we can use this facility as a step-down unit where patients who are getting better and won’t be needing critical care or O2 support will be transferred. These beds may also be used like a general isolation ward. It is scheduled to be operational from this Friday, starting with 50 beds,” said an AMRI Hospital spokesperson.
Utilization of some portion of Salt Lake stadium as a safe house had been planned by the North 24 Parganas district health authorities with the rapid surge of Covid cases in Bidhannagar and its adjacent areas. The district administration was asked to take up the issue with the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC) authorities to work on the details.
The New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) is also planning to open a 30-bed safe house in Action Area III by next week. “The safe-house facility is being planned to be set up on two floors of the NBCC building where the health department will also be running a safe-house facility. The plan is to club the NKDA-run and the state health department-operated facilities together for better management,” said an NKDA official.
The NBCC building in New Town was being used as a safe house during the lockdown last year.
In the two-storey building in Action Area II which was used as a 20-bed safe house last year, and later as a vaccination centre earlier this year, the authorities are ascertaining if an oxygen tent facility could be set up through the public-private-partnership (PPP) mode. “We are working on the plan. With huge demand of oxygen and hospital beds, having an oxygen tent would benefit Covid patients who are in urgent need,” said an official.
BMC authorities are working on plans to set up more safe houses in Salt Lake and Rajarhat. The adjacent South Dum Dum Municipality authorities have already opened a 40-bed safe house in the civic body-run Rabindra Bhavan complex.