THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The district administration is upping its ante to combat the third wave of Covid which is expected to impact children more. As part of this, the district administration has earmarked the SAT hospital as the major hospital for paediatric Covid care. “SAT hospital will be the main hospital and depending upon the caseload, one or two wards from Medical College Hospital (MCH) will be included. We have already done the case projections and gap analysis of how many pediatric ICU beds are needed.
In a few weeks we will have sufficient pediatric beds,” collector Navjot Khosa told TNIE. All measures are being taken to ramp up infrastructure facility, the collector said. The second line of the hospital will be the Government Women and Children Hospital at Thycaud. A gap analysis is being done to ascertain the areas that need to be addressed.
The emergency preparedness is being readied by increasing the vaccination drive, infrastructure development and pediatric facilities in hospitals in the district. “The first weapon with us is vaccination. We are doing quite well in terms of vaccination. The targeted intervention of vaccination is also in full swing, with 100 per cent vaccination coverage of old-age homes. Special programmes have been launched for targeting tribals, palliative patients and so on. The targeted intervention is being done so that we can save the vulnerable population,” said Khosa.
The second line of defence is infrastructure development which is categorised into four viz- normal beds, oxygen beds, ICUs and ventilators. “We started planning three weeks ago on how to scale down and scale up for the next wave. Once we are out of the second wave we have to start non-Covid cases too and at the same time, we shouldn’t be caught off guard. We should have sufficient infrastructure in place so that admissions can start directly,” said Khosa.
Capacity building interventions are being carried out in all hospitals. In the MCH, a 100-bed ICU ward has been developed which will be earmarked completely for Covid. “It is a new ward and we haven’t taken it from the non-Covid ward. Oxygen generation plants and liquid medical oxygen tanks will be set up wherever possible. The preparations and gap analysis have already begun. And sanction has also been given for works to be carried out ,” said Khosa. The focus will also be on tying up with the private sector. Emergency preparedness is being closely reviewed every week.
