Delhi: 300 ventilators at Burari Covid facility as govt preps for next wave

New Delhi: In preparation for the next wave of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), Delhi government has added 200 ventilators for adults and 100 more for children at a makeshift 1,000-oxygen-bed facility in Burari

New Delhi: In preparation for the next wave of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), Delhi government has added 200 ventilators for adults and 100 more for children at a makeshift 1,000-oxygen-bed facility in Burari.

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The facility was first started with oxygen beds towards April-end when cases of Covid-19 shot up, creating a crisis for the healthcare infrastructure. With the addition of ventilators, now the facility will also treat severe Covid cases.

The equipment for the facility has been arranged by the Delhi government, whereas the manpower is supplied by Ujala Cygnus Group.

“With very few cases of coronavirus disease, we are running only 50 beds at the moment. There are no patients in the facility; we discharged the last patient only a few days ago,” said Dr Shuchin Bajaj, founder-director, Ujala Cygnus Group of Hospitals, adding that the facility will keep opening up 50 beds for every 0.5% increase in the city’s positivity rate.

“We will hire staff for a short time or divert them from across our hospital chain to open beds as the positivity rate goes up. The Centre had set a threshold of 5% but as we saw how the cases shot up last time, we will start increasing capacity early on this time,” said Dr Bajaj.

Increasing the number of beds according to rise in positivity is part of the government’s graded action plan for hospitals.

“In the second wave, we had seen the peak and we ran out of beds, oxygen and ICU facilities. So, for the upcoming third wave, we have to make sure that we don’t commit the same errors,” said Dr Bajaj.