BENGALURU: As the number of Covid cases are rising, Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa has called a meeting with private medical colleges and hospitals on Saturday to discuss allocating more beds to fight the pandemic. If all hospitals linked to medical colleges can set aside facilities for Covid-19, the city alone will have over 3,500 additional beds. The meeting has been convened at the CM’s official residence Krishna at 4 pm and Yediyurappa is going to seek suggestions and strategies to fight covid cases better, government sources said.
The meeting will also be attended by the team of eight ministers, who have been assigned the task of dealing with the crisis in the city. The ministers were already under pressure to increase the number of beds in the city as there have been many complaints of patients not being admitted in government and private hospitals.
Dr Sudarshan Ballal, Chairman, Manipal Hospitals, and a member of the Consultative Group to fight Covid said, “These medical college and hospitals can be used as backup facilities, considering they have a large capacity and are reasonably staffed. They can also be used as Covid Care Centres should a need arise.”
He said, “Using some
smaller hospitals too is a good strategy as the entire unit can be converted into a Covid-only facility. This was suggested earlier.”Already, Rajarajeshwari Medical College and Hospital has been catering to Covid patients from Ramanagara, while Ambedkar Medical College in the city too has been admitting corona patients. Together they have around 400 beds.
Former minister MR Seetharam from MS Ramaiah College Hospital told TNIE, “We have already offered the government 200 beds and we are willing to offer 100 more exclusively for Covid.’’ Saturday’s meeting is likely to be attended by private medical college representatives only from the city and not surrounding areas.