3 Covid health centres to come up in Nilgiris

Udhagamandalam: The district administration has created Covid health centres (CHC) to provide treatment to moderately affected patients.
This will free up at least 50% of beds with oxygen support facilities in government hospitals for emergency purposes.
On Friday, Youth Hostel with 70 beds in the town was turned into a CHC. At least 23 Covid patients from the Ooty Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) were shifted to the CHC-Youth Hostel on Friday. Duty doctors will man the CHC round-the-clock while physicians would make visits to the centre twice a day.
“This strategy is mainly to keep 50% of beds in the four government hospitals in the district free for emergency purposes,” collector J Innocent Divya said.
There are 369 beds, including 254 with oxygen support, in the four government hospitals - Ooty GMCH, Coonoor GH, Kotagiri GH and Gudalur GH besides eight private hospitals. Of the total beds, 286 are occupied by patients as of Friday.
“A hospital with 30 beds run by Cordite factory at Aruvankadu and another with 35 beds run by Cantonment Board at Wellington will also be identified as CHCs from Monday,” Divya said.
At least 81 patients at government hospitals are being treated under oxygen support. At least 25% of the daily new cases of the virus require oxygen support. Hence, patients are classified under three categories such as severely affected, moderately affected and mildly affected by the virus. While severely affected Covid patients and patients above 60 years are admitted to the government hospitals, asymptomatic and mildly affected patients would be treated at Covid care centres.
As of now, three Covid care centres with over 300 beds are functioning in the district. “If the situation demands we would create more Covid care centres,” the collector said.
On Friday, the Nilgiris registered 161 new cases of Covid-19 taking the tally to 10,633. As many as 733 active cases are being treated at various health facilities besides home quarantine.