In plan to ramp up Covid-19 beds, Lt Guv Baijal gets 10,000 more beds for Delhi

Lt Governor Anil Baijal travelled to south Delhi’s Radha Soami Satsang Beas campus on Sunday to inspect a makeshift facility being set for 10,000 Covid-19 patients

Lt Governor Anil Baijal travelled to south Delhi’s Radha Soami Satsang Beas campus on Sunday to inspect a makeshift facility being set for 10,000 Covid-19 patients in the national capital. “This will be the city’s biggest facility of its kind,” a government official said.

Lt Governor Anil Baijal inspeected the Radha Soami Satsang Beas campus in south Delhi that is being converted into a 10,000-bed makeshift facility for Covid-19 patients.dustan (HT Photo/Sanjeev Verma)

Baijal had stepped in to reach out to the spiritual organisation to join the effort earlier this week as the city struggles to rapidly raise the number of beds available for patients when Delhi’s Covid-19 peaks next month.

“This is a unique joint venture between the government and a community group and will be a great help to meet the projected requirement of beds,” Anil Baijal said as he took a quick tour of the facility at Chattarpur Bhati.

Delhi’s health department has projected that Covid-19 cases in Delhi could rise to 1 lakh by this month-end, and breach the 5 lakh-mark by the end of July. The government has estimated that it would need 80,000 beds for patients by the time the disease count reaches 5 lakh.

The Health Department will provide facilities such as oxygen cylinders/concentrators, as well as other medical and paramedical staff for the treatment of Covid-19 patients. Radha Swami Satsang will take care of food and doctors.

“This is a fight where all of us have to join hands to defeat this pandemic,” Lt Governor Baijal said, who had headed to the facility straight from Home Minister Amit Shah’s review meeting on Covid-19.

Amit Shah had asked the city government to raise testing, get hospitals to reduce the charges for 60 per cent of their beds for Covid-19 patients and give Delhi 500 railway coaches modified to treat patients.