Residents set up 20-bed Covid care centre in east Delhi

The facility is meant for those with mild and moderate disease with minimal oxygen requirement. The centre does not take in patients who have comorbidities like diabetes, hypertension, chronic heart, lung, and kidney disease or those who are likely to deteriorate.

Residents of east Delhi’s Swasthya Vihar have set up a Covid care centre with 20 beds, each equipped with an oxygen concentrator, in what is one of the first such community-run facilities in the national capital.

The health ministry had come up with guidelines for societies to set up such small Covid Care facilities in their community centres. (HT file photo. Representative image)

Housed in the locality’s community centre, patients are monitored by a team of five to six doctors who live in the colony. The facility, opened on May 1 — as the Capital bore the brunt of the fourth wave of infections — was initially meant only for residents of Swasthya Vihar, but has since been extended to a couple of neighbouring colonies, extending the reach to almost 10,000 people, officials said.

“This is the largest such initiative being managed completely by the community. Most of the facility was set up with aid received from various NGOs. Mission Oxygen [an NGO], donated 14 of the oxygen concentrators,” said Dr Pawanindra Lal, one of the doctors managing the facility, and head of minimal access surgery at Lok Nayak hospital.

The facility is meant for those with mild and moderate disease with minimal oxygen requirement. The centre does not take in patients who have comorbidities like diabetes, hypertension, chronic heart, lung, and kidney disease or those who are likely to deteriorate. Pregnant women are also not admitted to the facility.

“The facility is very useful for those who live alone or need good monitoring. On several occasions, people do not find out when their oxygen saturations starts dropping. We have tie-ups with two or three neighbouring hospitals, so that in case someone deteriorates, they can be moved immediately,” said Dr Lal.

In around two weeks, around eight people have been treated at the facility and discharged.

The health ministry had come up with guidelines for societies to set up such small Covid Care facilities in their community centres. The guidelines were re-iterated by the Delhi government in April when the Covid-19 cases shot up exponentially in the city.

The patients admitted to the centre pay ₹5,000 a day, which goes largely towards the payment for nursing care. “It cost around ₹25 lakh to set up the centre and run it for a month. This sum was managed through donations of equipment by NGOs and money by several residents,” Dr Lal said.