KOCHI: Scripting success in pandemic containment in Ernakulam, Covid care centre in the refurbished PVS Hospital has wound up its operations. Since the district is equipped with sufficient government facilities to manage the crisis, officials have decided to close down the hospital which treated more than 1,500 patients and vaccinated over 45,000 individuals so far. The hospital wound up its operations on July 4.
“It was a collective effort of various departments,” says Dr M M Haneesh, the Covid nodal officer, who led the mission to covert the defunct PVS Hospital into a multispeciality Covid care centre. “The idea of setting up the hospital was part of the Ernakulam’s surge plan. The proposal to set up a Covid care centre came in August 2020 and we managed to open the full-fledged facility by September overcoming a series of challenges. We took an unconventional approach for the project. Though a government process takes time, we had to complete everything in a short period.
Apart from getting funds from National Health Mission, we reached out to several private institutions and used their CSR funds for the project,” said Dr Asha Vijayan, medical superintendent of Government General Hospital, Muvattupuzha, who managed the additional charge of leading the apex managing committee of PVS Covid Care Centre.
Apart from following the Centre’s treatment protocol, the team made customised protocols for the hospital. “We wanted to provide the best possible treatment to the patients. Other than trained medical staff, we had critical care specialists round the clock. Overall, we managed to provide quality health care for common citizens,” she said.
While treating thousands of Covid patients, the hospital managed to ensure foolproof infection control. “There were no acquired infections in the hospital. The infection control was meticulous throughout the period. We also treated more than 200 health workers admitted from across the district last year. It is a takeaway for future initiatives. We are also preparing a document to be submitted to the government to replicate the public-private partnership multipronged approach in future healthcare initiatives,” Dr Asha said.
The entire initiative owes its genesis to a comment that appeared on the Facebook page of the Ernakulam district collector, enquiring whether the hospital could be converted into a Covid care centre.
Timely decision making was the cornerstone of success, say the doctors. “From building up the centre from scratch with the support of agencies like KWA, KSEB, PWD to partnering with public and private sector companies like Cochin Shipyard, CIAL, LNG Petronet, KSFE and many others, timely decisions by the entire team were the reason behind the success. The hospital was functioning succssfully with quality care in a unique public-private partnership mode. As we have wound up the operations, all the equipment have been shifted to Ernakulam General Hospital, District Hospital Aluva, Government General Hospital, Muvattupuzha, and Fort Kochi Gvernment Hospital,” Dr Haneesh said.