E-Paper
Covid-19 facilities being readied at 51 Army hospitals
New Delhi: Dedicated facilities are being readied for treating Covid-19 patients at 51 hospitals operated by the armed forces across the country, including in Kolkata,
New Delhi: Dedicated facilities are being readied for treating Covid-19 patients at 51 hospitals operated by the armed forces across the country, including in Kolkata, Visakhapatnam, Kochi, Dundigal (near Hyderabad), Bengaluru, Kanpur, Jaisalmer, Jorhat and Gorakhpur, the defence ministry said in a statement on Friday.
They will have intensive care unit (ICU) beds and high dependency units (HDUs) among other things. HDUs are a scaled down versions of ICUs.
The ministry said the Indian Air Force’s transport fleet has been deployed to airlift essential supplies, medicines and medical equipment. It has so far transported 60 tonnes of stores, it added. Thirty transport planes and 28 helicopters are on standby at various bases across the country to support the fight against the pandemic.
The ministry said the military is running quarantine facilities at Mumbai, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Hindon, Manesar and Chennai where 1,737 cases have been handled. Of them, 403 people have been released. “Fifteen other facilities are on standby,” the ministry said.
The 15 facilities, with a combined capacity for 7,000 people, are in cities like Babina, Jhansi, Barmer, Bhopal, Kolkata, Bhatinda, Hyderabad, Kanpur, Gorakhpur and Kochi.
Over 8,500 military doctors and support staff are ready to help the government in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. As many as 9,000 hospital beds have been prepared to meet emergency requirements. Five hospitals run by the armed forces are equipped to carry out Covid-19 tests and six more would be added to the list soon, the ministry said.
Six warships and five medical teams are on standby to provide assistance to neighbouring countries, the ministry said.
The Defence Research and Development Organisation has also come up with solutions for sanitising metro stations, railway stations, hospitals, malls, airports, isolation areas, quarantine centres and high-risk residential areas. It said its Delhi-based Centre for Fire Explosive & Environment Safety has developed two configurations of sanitising equipment (portable and trolley mounted) that are spin-offs from technologies developed for fire suppression. “Two of these systems are being provided to the Delhi Police for immediate use. These can be made available to other agencies with the help of industry partners,” the agency said in a statement.
