Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike adopts Mumbai model to fight COVID, sets up ward panels

BENGALURU : In a bid to effectively manage COVID-19 at ward level, a Ward Decentralised Triage and Emergency Response (DETER) Committee for COVID-19 Management has been formed within Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) limits.

A virtual meeting regarding the committee was held by Forest Minister Arvind Limbavali on Sunday, where it was decided that officials in each ward must work with RWAs, organisations, students, and volunteers, and set up a ward control room, triage centre, and micro-COVID Care Centre (CCCs) to respond quickly to the patients' concerns. 

Lists of small hospitals, dental colleges and students must be prepared and teams must be formed to assign responsibilities of COVID management. "Measures are being taken to curb the virus on the lines of Mumbai and Chennai. Not every COVID-infected person needs to be hospitalised. Those with no separate facility to self-isolate can get treated at CCCs. Along with this, triaging centres will be formed at the ward-level to treat those in home isolation," Limbavali said.

Principal Secretary, Revenue Department, N Manjunatha Prasad, said ward-level committees are formed in all 198 wards. "Nodal officers, doctors, staff, ANM and ASHA workers will be working at the 141 PHCs. Testing and vaccination will take place at these PHCs. In addition, a control room and triaging centre will be established in all the wards. The Department of Health and Medical Education will appoint the staff needed for the triaging centre  which will operate 24 hours," Prasad said. 

He said that they will provide home isolation kits to the infected, send them to CCCs/stabilisation centres and hospitals whenever treatment is required.