Health dept of South Dinajpur to open a separate Covid ward at Balurghat dist hosp

Balurghat: With a target to accommodate more Covid infected patients to provide treatment, the district health department of South Dinajpur will open a separate ward at Balurghat district hospital soon.

Initially it has been decided that the new Covid ward will start functioning at the first floor of the old hospital building.

A health official said an Officer-on-Special-Duty (OSD) from North Bengal Medical College and Hospital along with a team of officials from the district administration had visited the hospital last week and consented to open the new ward for the serious Covid patients.

"The new Covid ward will comprise 130 beds for the patients. We will also open a High Dependency Unit (HDU) of 20 beds and set up modern equipment like Bypass-machine, monitor and pulse-oximeter to treat the serious patients there. At present we are developing infrastructure there so that it can open within a week on an emergency basis," said the official.

Currently the Covid infected patients are being treated at Balurghat Natya Utkarsha Kendra.

As many as 85 beds are now available there. A separate ward has recently been opened at Gangarampur sub-divisional hospital with 41 beds. In addition to this, the district health department has decided to open another separate ward of 130-beds at Balurghat hospital to accommodate more Covid patients. A 20-bed HDU will also be available there.

A health source said the maternity ward had recently been shifted from the first floor of the district hospital to the new building of Super-specialty hospital.

At present, SNCU unit along with some other units which are functioning there at the same floor will be shifted to the new building of Super-specialty hospital so that the new Covid ward will start operating from there. If necessary, the second floor of the old building may turn into another Covid ward, it is learnt.

Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr Sukumar Dey said: "Covid patients in South Dinajpur are increasing following its second wave and in order to treat more patients at a time, a separate ward will soon start functioning at Balurghat hospital's first floor of the old building. An inspection comprising experts was conducted already regarding the matter. 130 beds will be available there."