CHENNAI: At least 1,000 more beds will be added to government facilities in the coming days to treat COVID-19 patients. This includes 500 beds for the elderly in the National Centre for Ageing (NCA).
Addressing reporters at the King Institute in Guindy, Health Minister C Vijayabaskar on Tuesday announced that the NCA, located at the institute’s campus, would be in operation soon with 500 beds while 200 will have oxygen supply. NCA is a central government assisted project which began some five years ago.
“It has individual rooms as well as common wards. It will be used as a standby exclusive hospital for high risk people. We have also appointed 81 specialised doctors here who have finished MS/MD,’’ said the health minister.
He said that the institute will have MBBS doctors soon and other health care workers too. Apart from this, the Chennai Port Trust Hospital and Egmore Eye Hospital will have 300 COVID beds each in the coming days.
"This has been planned with the next 60 days in mind. Private hospitals too have promised to scale up beds," he said.
Vijayabaskar on June 8 had told private hospitals and medical colleges in the state to appoint a nodal officer for communication with the government on COVID-19 treatment.
According to a statement released on Tuesday, the Minister in a video conference met representatives of 400 private hospitals, requesting them to take in more patients and increase the bed capacity.
“I request the private hospitals to extend their bed capacity for COVID-19 treatment and also update the bed vacancies, occupancies, ventilator status on www.stopcoronatn.in,’’ the Health Minister said, in the statement.
This comes in the wake of the minister on Monday ascertaining that there were adequate beds in the city. Following this, former news anchor TV Varadarajan was booked on charges of spreading fake news after he circulated a video on how a person known to him found it difficult to get admitted in a hospital.
Meanwhile, the Chennai Corporation has about 10,000 bed facilities which have been allotted to four major government hospitals in the city to transfer patients.
About 3000 beds each have been allotted to RGGGH and Stanley whereas around 2,000 beds have been allotted for KMC.
In the wake of government hospitals in the city except Omandurar Multispeciality Hospital running full, they are already in the process of shifting patients every day.
Officials at Stanley said no patient currently is in a condition to be discharged. “We are just shifting patients to the COVID care centres,’’ said the official. This is the case with KMCH and RGGGH too.
Currently, 28 private hospitals are treating COVID-19 patients in Chennai. At least five of them are full while another five have only about 20 percent vacancies.
The minister also announced a new helpline number 044-4006 7108 for COVID-19 patients. “After testing positive, patients can call this number to avail the ambulance," the minister said. For details on the availability of beds, people can visit www.stopcoronatn.in.