Lawyers’ group sets up Covid field hospital with 50 O2 beds

The group started working with Aster DM Healthcare, an organisation that runs several hospitals in India and abroad, and Al-Shifa hospital in Delhi.

After observing a lack of resources and scarcity of beds amid the fourth wave of the pandemic, a group of lawyers in the national capital have joined hands to set up a Covid care facility or field hospital with 50 oxygen beds in order to help boost Delhi’s heath infrastructure.

The facility, which has oxygen beds, oxygen concentrators and other medical support, has already been set up in a private school in southeast Delhi’s Jamia Nagar. (AP file photo)

The facility, which has oxygen beds, oxygen concentrators and other medical support, has already been set up in a private school in southeast Delhi’s Jamia Nagar. While the facility is yet to receive an approval from the Delhi government, the lawyers — Vaibhav Kakkar, Karan Chandiok, Pooja Mahajan, and Akshay Jain — said it will become operational in “4-5 days”.

Chandiok said that he had struggled for 16 hours to get an ICU bed for his uncle who tested positive for Covid-19 last month, and attributed this delay to the relative’s death. “Even as we were helping people in verifying leads for oxygen cylinders, concentrators, beds and medicines, we realised that there was a dearth of medical resources for Covid-19 patients. We decided to pool funds to augment oxygen supply and import oxygen contractors,” he said.

The group started working with Aster DM Healthcare, an organisation that runs several hospitals in India and abroad, and Al-Shifa hospital in Delhi.

“The field hospital will be managed by Al-Shifa, which will provide doctors and nursing staff. We are looking at a staggered approach in terms of opening. We have placed orders for BiPaP ventilator machines as well. We are waiting for all the required stuff to arrive before approaching the Delhi government for final approval. We might be able to start it in four-five days,” Chandiok said.