Bathinda AIIMS to set up temporary 300-bed Covid care facility

With the indoor patient department at All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS), Bathinda, all set to get delayed indefinitely after construction workers left for their home states, the central institute is gearing up to open a temporary 300-bed Covid care facility on the premises.

The indoor patient department was scheduled to start from November last year, but the work was hit after the pandemic outbreak last year.

Institute director Dr DK Singh said he is contacting the Punjab and central authorities to ensure oxygen supply at AIIMS for Covid patients.

“The newly constructed nurses’ hostel and a night shelter can be converted into temporary Covid care facilities with 150 beds each. Other blocks of the under-construction compound of AIIMS can also be utilised to treat coronavirus patients,” said Singh.

AIIMS has recently started a 40-bed facility, with 10 beds reserved for critical patients who need ventilators.

The institute director said an internal audit conducted on Wednesday stated that construction activities undertaken by a hired agency have almost stopped due to shortage of workers.

“The construction agency was conveyed that workers should be encouraged to drop travel plans to their native villages in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal as Covid is spreading at an alarming rate and the institute can take care of their health, but they have left work,” Singh added.

Expressing concern over reluctance by a sizeable section of Punjab’s rural population towards vaccination and testing, Singh said religious leaders should motivate people.

On Thursday, Bathinda reported 858 new Covid cases and nine deaths.