Big hospitals to be linked with 5-star hotels, price to be capped at Rs 10k/day

The Health Department of the Aam Aadmi Party government informed Delhi Lt Governor Anil Baijal during the DDMA meet on Tuesday that it is extending Covid hospitals by linking big hospitals with nearby 5/4 star hotels with an upper price cap of Rs 10,000 per day per bed. The hotels would provide beds, housekeeping, fooding as well as medical services.

A press statement from the LG office said, “Eight hotels-hospitals have been linked to act as extended Covid Hospitals, approx.” The information was shared by Principal Secretary (health) in the DDMA meet headed by Baijal. The District Magistrates are carrying out the exercise of linking 19 more hospitals with hotels which would tentatively increase the capacity by another 2,000 beds (approx.) by June 15.

The Delhi government apprised the LG that the CATS ambulance fleet has been augmented to 450 from earlier 160 with reduced response time of less than 30 minutes. All 42 testing labs have been made functional in the national capital.

A committee under the chairmanship of the Divisional Commissioner has been constituted to explore the possibility of creation of additional bed capacity. It has suggested using Pragati Maidan, Talkatora Indoor stadium, Thyagaraj Indoor stadium, Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium, Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium, Dhyanchand National Stadium etc. as make-shift hospitals, said the statement.

It was also informed that at present, 11,259 cases are in home isolation and specialised healthcare companies have been engaged exclusively for such cases.

A total of 2,000 pulse oxymeters have been reserved for patients under home isolation. Also, extensive TV and print media activities have been initiated to make people understand how to conduct themselves under home isolation.

Baijal has directed all the stakeholders for containment zone strategies as per the ICMR guidelines and has instructed the field officials to delineate the containment zones properly to ensure their effective management to contain the spread of the infection.

The LG also advised the officials to take lessons from the best practices of other cities like Mumbai, Chennai and Bengaluru for better management of Covid-19 cases in Delhi.