COVID-19 hospital in Noida, new lab in Ghaziabad soon as NCR sees spike in cases
LUCKNOW: With no let-up in the number of fresh Covid-19 cases in the National Capital Region, a 400-bed dedicated hospital is expected to become functional in Sector 39 of Noida by the end of the month while a new testing laboratory will be set up in Ghaziabad.
Additional Chief Secretary, Health, Amit Mohan Prasad said on Wednesday that the facility was being constructed jointly by Tata Project Limited and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with the state government also pitching in to give momentum to the project.
Prasad said so far 154 beds with oxygen facilities were ready in the general ward. “With 24 beds in intensive care units and seven in the emergency ward, besides six ventilators, this hospital would soon be a boon for Covid-19 patients in the district. The hospital will care for moderate Covid cases.
While the district authorities were asked to provide all help to the hospital, the process of identifying well-trained staff and expert doctors for the hospital was also on.
“I hope by the end of July this hospital will be fully operational,” Prasad said.
Later, during a review meeting with the district administration and health department officials, he also directed the health officials to take up surveillance and ensure immediate tracking of Covid-19 patients.
Giving figures of the 10-day door- to-door special screening drive of Noida, the officer claimed that as many as 10,41,346 houses were tracked during the special surveillance drive that ended on Sunday.
As the campaign was launched with the intent to identify vulnerable people, including those with comorbid medical conditions like cancer, renal disease, diabetes, TB, liver ailments, elderly, pregnant women and children below 10 years of age, samples of around 35,000 people were taken in Noida. Of the 35,000 samples, only 825 had tested Covid-19 positive.
The district has 2,894 beds ready against its identified strength of 5,574 beds.Prasad also said Uttar Pradesh had become the third highest sample testing state after Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. Having tested 12,77, 241 samples so far, the UP health authorities had ramped up the number by testing over 45,000 samples on a single day during the last 24 hours.
Sharing the details, he said while the state took four months to test the initial 6 lakh samples, the second 6 lakh samples were tested in just 20 days.
“Only Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu are ahead of us now in daily sample testing. We hope to be at number two position very soon by taking our single day sample testing figure to 50,000,” he said.