BENGALURU: City hospitals are ramping up their infrastructure to tackle the predicted Covid third wave and prevent a rerun of the acute scarcity of beds. KC General Hospital recently set up a makeshift Covid hospital, and now, the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases (RGICD) too is well on course to opening one. The upcoming hospital, located next to its main building, will have 200 beds, including ICU and High Dependency Unit (oxygen) beds, triaging area, wards and staff rooms, among others.
“There are multiple Covid-19 virus mutations that could lead to a third and even fourth wave. To prevent a repeated struggle for beds, which we saw in the earlier two waves, we are building this makeshift hospital. It took just one month, and one unit is ready. The second unit will be ready soon and will be opened in 15 days,” Dr C Nagaraj, RGICD director, said, adding that RGICD staff will be deployed along with additional staffers provided by the state government from nearby hospitals.
The hospital is also considering setting up a paediatric section for Covid cases, similar to the Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health, should there be a surge in children getting infected, as some experts predict for the third wave. There are only 10 Covid-19 patients and 45 Severe Acute Respiratory Infection patients in the Covid-19 building right now.