Kejriwal inspects 10k-bed Chhatarpur Covid-19 facility

Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) has urged the central government to allow the Army and central security forces to provide around 2,000 health care officials, largely including doctors and nurses.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday visited the Radhasoami Satsang Beas in south Delhi’s Chhatarpur, where the government is setting up a makeshift Covid-19 health care facility with 10,000 beds over an area big enough to cover 20 football fields.

CM Kejriwal and deputy CM Manish Sisodia at the 10,000-bed facility coming up at the south Delhi campus of the Radhasoami Satsang Beas, a spiritual organisation. (Sanjeev Verma/HT photo)

For this facility, the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) has urged the central government to allow the Army and central security forces to provide around 2,000 health care officials, largely including doctors and nurses, said a senior government official who did not wish to be identified.

“This 10,000-bed facility should be ready for admission of Covid patients by the first week of July. It will primarily cater to patients with mild or no symptoms who cannot be assigned home quarantine for some reason and may need medical intervention. It will be our biggest dedicated Covid health centre,” Kejriwal said during his visit to the premises, where he was accompanied by deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia.

He said, “By June 30, we shall have 15,000 hospital beds available and the number will go up to 30,000 by July 15. The progress in the health care augmentation exercise is at par with what was planned. Right now, we are focussing more on augmenting ICU beds in hospitals for the coming days.”

On Sunday, Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, who heads the DDMA, had visited the site and directed the district administration to file a feasibility report.

A senior official in the revenue department said, the facility – set up on a field that measures around 11.90 lakh square feet — would operate in two shifts and it would need at least 600 doctors and 1,200 nurses, other than workers engaged in waste management, sanitation employees, guards, workers involved in help desks and other back-end operations.

The government is also working on a centralised air conditioning system for the facility, which will be treated like 20 hospitals of 500 bed each, having enclosures that accommodate 100 beds each, said a senior revenue department official, citing the feasibility report filed by the district administration.