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Ghaziabad residents protest health dept’s decision to convert colleges into covid centres
Ghaziabad:
Ghaziabad:
The district health department’s decision to convert several colleges and hostels into Covid care centres has started attracting protests from the residents. On Friday, a group of residents in Model Town took out a silent protest against the conversion of city’s MMH College to a Covid care centre.
On Thursday, some students of a government hostel in Nandgram had raised objection to the conversion of their hostel as Covid care facility.
As the Covid-19 cases are rising rapidly in the district, the health department is scrambling for increasing the L1 category hospital beds. According to the official figures, the department has proposed conversion of seven colleges across the city into Covid care centres with a combined capacity of 2,000 beds. The UP chief minister had recently directed the authorities to increase the number Covid beds in the state to about 100,000.
Amol Vashistha, a former councillor, said that the residents made a silent at the gate of the MMH College. “About 20-22 thousand people are living in close vicinity of the college campus. If it gets converted into L1 category Covid care facility, there will be movement of health care staff, patients and others, which may pose risk to the local population. We have also submitted our representation at district magistrate’s office,” said Vashistha.
Colonel (retired) TP Tyagi, a resident of Model Town, said, “The administration, instead of opting for Covid care centres in middle of the residential areas, should try to acquire colleges located adjacent to Delhi-Meerut Road and NH-9. Once these get converted, the colleges in city areas can be acquired. But it would require stringent sanitization and cleaning procedures to be taken up.”
On Thursday, the students of Nandgram government hostel, meant for students of Scheduled Caste category, had raised objection and submitted a representation to district officials.
District officials said that they are conducting an inquiry into the representation given by hostel students. “If they are residing in the hostel, the facility will not be converted. Though some colleges, including MMH College, are proposed as Covid care centres, they are not getting converted on an immediate basis,” said Shiv Praksh Shukl, city magistrate.
Notably, the district on March 31 had only seven Covid-19 positive cases which rose to 66 on April 30, and the tally further increased to 319 as on May 31. Till June 4, the tally of Covid-19 cases stood at 378 in the district.
“The beds at ESI hospital in Sahibabad, an L1 category facility, are almost full with 72 patients admitted there. We are trying to open another hospital at Niwari with 200 beds, but we need to find a vendor who can provide daily food for patients and doctors. The hospital is far from the city, but we are trying to find vendors. The L1 hospital at Murdnagar that has 30 beds is also not functioning at present,” said Dr NK Gupta, chief medical officer (CMO).
“In such a situation, we will now open up a 60-bed hospital at a hostel which we have acquired in Nandgram. We have also proposed to set up 2,000 beds in seven different colleges, but people have raised objections. We are trying our best to get more L1 category hospitals. We have a target of creating 4,000 beds at all L1, L2 and L3 facilities,” the CMO said.
Apart from the operational L1 hospital, the city at present has 100-bed L2 category hospital at Sanjay Nagar which is operational and another L3 category hospital at Santosh Medical College which has been made operational last week. The L3 hospital is meant for critical care.
Overall, Uttar Pradesh has 403 L1 category hospitals having 52,924 beds, 75 hospitals of L2 category with 16,212 beds (along with oxygen and ventilator facilities), and 25 hospitals of L3 category which have 12,090 beds. Besides, the state has other attached hospitals with combined capacity of 101,236 beds available for Covid patients, the officials said.
