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UP conducts mock drills at Covid hospitals
Amid a spurt in Covid-19 cases in some countries, the Centre has asked states and Union Territories to conduct mock drills at all Covid hospitals as part of precautionary measures
LUCKNOW A mock drill was carried out at 400 Covid hospitals across Uttar Pradesh to assess their preparedness to deal with any likely increase in the number of cases following the recent detection of two patients.
Amid a spurt in Covid-19 cases in some countries, the Centre has asked states and Union Territories to conduct mock drills at all Covid hospitals as part of precautionary measures.
Nations like China, Japan and the US were seeing a spike in cases, believed to be caused by BF.7, a sub variant of Omicron. Four cases of Omicron sub-variant BF.7 have been detected in India so far.
RC Sahu (name changed) was rushed to Lucknow’s Balrampur Hospital in an ambulance after a complaint of high fever (suspected Covid). The para medical staff here took him to the bed on a stretcher while nurses and doctors swung into action and he was immediately put on oxygen. After a while, the man rose from his bed with a smile because he was not actually ill. This was all part of a mock drill.
Deputy chief minister Brajesh Pathak took stock of the oxygen plant, supply and the ventilator facility here.
“A mock drill is being conducted across all Covid hospitals in the state to check their preparedness. I checked the Covid management (facilities), oxygen flow and ventilators at Lucknow’s Balrampur Hospital. Everything is working fine. A mock drill is being conducted for medical, paramedical and nursing staff on how to function in case of an emergency,” Pathak, who is also the state’s health minister, told media persons.
“The deputy CM checked the flow of oxygen along with the working of the ventilator at the hospital. He also checked oxygen purity and other aspects of oxygen supply,” said Dr Manoj Agarwal, CMO, Lucknow.
Pathak took off his woolen jacket (sadri) and gave it to a patient, Banwari, who was shivering while waiting for dressing. The dy CM asked the hospital director to take care of the patient and keep him informed about his health.
According to Balrampur Hospital Director Dr Ramesh Goel, the patient was operated a week back and was here for dressing of his wound.
In Varanasi, 11 hospitals, including the district hospital, conducted the mock drill. Availability of health facilities, capacity of isolation beds, availability of oxygen/ICU and ventilators were assessed. Chief medical officer Dr Sandeep Chaudhary said: “We are fully prepared. All hospital staff members have been notified, and we are prepared to deal with any emergency.”
Gorakhpur’s BRD Medical College, 100-bed TB Hospital, Government Homeopathy Medical College, Barhalganj, CHC Chauri Chaura and CHC Campierganj also undertook the exercise.
“All 200 ventilators are operational. As many as 1,000 oxygen concentrators and over 1,000 large cylinders available. The district team is prepared to deal with any situation that may arise,” said Dr Ashutosh Dubey, CMO.
Speaking about mock drills in Agra, CMO Dr Arun Srivastava said 1,402 general beds and 344 ICU beds had been reserved for Covid patients in the light of the new variant. Nodal officers had been appointed at all the selected CHCs while 40 beds were added to the district hospital and 68 beds added to the SN Medical College, he said.
Mock drills were conducted at eight hospitals in Prayagraj, including Swaroop Rani Nehru Hospital, Level 1 Hospital at Phulpur, Kotwa Manda and Ram Nagar, Railway Hospital, Bailey Hospital, and United MediCity Hospital . According to Dr Varun, mock drill in-charge, 1,532 beds were available in the district to deal with Covid while there were 10 operational oxygen plants. In addition, 458 oxygen concentrators were also available.
Two fresh Covid cases in UP; active count at 50
Two fresh corona cases were reported in UP in the last 24 hours. One of the patients was from Noida and the other from Kanpur. Four Covid patients had also recovered during this period.
At present, there were 50 active cases in the state. Meerut had the maximum - seven active patients while Kushinagar and Rae Bareli had five each, Ambedkar Nagar, Noida and Ghaziabad four cases each. Apart from this, there were three active cases each in Amroha and Lucknow, as per the health department’s report.
