Delhi govt procures 990 ventilators for 15 hospitals

In order to scale up intensive care unit facilities in the national capital, the Delhi government has procured 990 portable ventilators for 15 hospitals and temporary Covid facilities

In order to scale up intensive care unit facilities in the national capital, the Delhi government has procured 990 portable ventilators for 15 hospitals and temporary Covid facilities.

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Of the 990, the highest allocation -- 150 ventilators -- is for the newly constructed Indira Gandhi hospital in Dwarka that the Delhi government is currently operationalising for Covid-19 patients. Health minister Satyendar Jain had earlier said the hospital would start functioning with 500 oxygen beds for Covid patients.

“To augment medical resources, optimum utilisation of space is being done. A 500 oxygen bed centre will be set up here by next week,” Jain had said last Wednesday. Two new hospitals in Burari and Ambedkar Nagar, operationalised last year by the Delhi government for treating Covid-19 patients, have also been allocated 80 ventilators each.

Other hospitals that are to receive 80 each ventilators are Deen Dayal Upadhaya in Hari Nagar and Baba Saheb Ambedkar hospital in Rohini.

The government allocated 80 ventilators each to temporary facilities such as the Sardar Patel Covid Care Centre in Chhatarpur, an extension of Burari hospital, and the Sant Darshan centre.

Two hospitals of the Employees State Insurance Corporation in Okhla and Jhilmil were allocated 50 ventilators in total.

Currently, Delhi has 5,872 intensive care unit beds, of which about 98.9% of the beds are occupied, but not all of them have ventilators. The occupancy is likely to reduce over the week as the number of Covid cases in the city has started going down once again. After recording over 20,000 fresh Covid-19 cases from April 16 to May 5, the numbers fell below 20,000 on May 6, when 19,133 fresh cases were reported. On Monday, Delhi recorded 12,651 fresh cases with a test positivity rate of 19.1%.