BENGALURU: Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Chief Commissioner Gaurav Gupta on Tuesday informed that while 800 new beds at private hospitals were added to the list of available beds meant for Covid care on Monday, the aim is to have 11,000 beds, through which “we will be able to reach some solution”. If every day, 1,000 beds are added, the situation can be handled, he said.
Speaking to reporters, he said, the demand for beds in government and private hospitals is rising, and that is why directions were issued to private hospitals to reserve 50 per cent of their beds to government-referred Covid patients. He added that though the notices issued on Sunday stated that if private hospitals did not reserve beds, then their OPDs will be shut down. But it has not yet been done as the private hospitals are reserving beds, albeit at a slow pace. They have been told to make arrangements at the earliest.
He added that nodal officers are being appointed to each hospital to see who needs to be admitted, and who should be sent to Covid Care Centres, step-down hospitals, makeshift hospitals like hotels and even in home isolation. The matter is in discussion with the government and a decision on this will soon be taken.
The Chief Commissioner added that to address the issue of oxygen supply, an oxygen management committee has been constituted by the state government. The demand for oxygen is rising. Earlier, a tank needed to be refilled once in 2-3 days, but now it has to be refilled two to three times in a day. Around 300 tonnes of oxygen is needed at the moment and it is being procured. The demand for oxygen has increased five times. Inspections are being carried out on wherever demand is rising.
Combat Covid meet takes stock of B’luru East
Bengaluru: Urban Development Minister Byrati A Basavraj on Tuesday held a Covid Combat meeting to deal with the Covid situation in the BBMP wards that come under Whitefield-Mahadevapura and KR Puram constituencies of East Bengaluru. Jurisdictional BBMP officials were present at the meeting, which lasted over two hours. The units were asked to make a more accurate count of the total positive cases by increasing the tests. The minister asked the teams to go to individual houses and carry out tests