While the prevalence of COVID infections is coming down gradually over the past few weeks, the district administration is gearing up to face the possible “third wave” in the coming months.
One of the important aspects of the planning for the third wave was identifying and addressing the lapses.
Collector J. Nivas, in an interaction with reporters, said the focus of response against COVID-19 had been on ground level fever survey where ward and village secretariats and volunteers were roped in to make door to door visits at least twice a week and identify people with COVID symptoms.
He said once symptomatic persons were identified and tested, further process of isolation and quarantining the affected could be done at an early stage and the spread could be contained.
Infrastructure
Mr. Nivas said that medical infrastructure across the district was being improved to meet the requirement in case a much worse situation rolled out during the “third wave”.
Unlike in the past, all the Aarogyasri eligible patients would be directed to private hospitals through the administration.
The number of oxygen beds would be increased to 800, including 200 ICU beds, and the storage capacity of medical oxygen would be increased to 160-kilo litres from the existing 99 kilolitres.
Mr. Nivas said oxygen generation capacity would be increased to 14,400 litres per minute (LPM).
“We are also focussing on improving facilities and capacities in a private hospital as they are more in demand,” he said and added that every hospital with more than 50 beds and 100 beds would be asked to set up 500 LPM and 1,000 LPM respectively and all the hospitals with more than 50 beds should have at least 100 oxygen cylinders.
At the GGH, a round the clock patient monitoring system was set up and the status of patients would be informed to family members from time to time, he said. On the other hand, the old Government General Hospital was being arranged with 100 paediatric ICU beds.