1,000-bedded COVID-19 hosp set up in 12 days; CM and HM make visit
New Delhi: Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Home Minister Amit Shah along with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday visited the newly-constructed temporary hospital with 1,000 beds for COVID-19 patients near the Indira Gandhi International Airport here, which according to the Central government was completed in a record time of 12 days on a piece of land belonging to the Ministry of Defence.
"Visited the 1,000 bed Sardar Patel Covid Hospital, which has 250 ICU beds, along with @rajnathsingh ji. DRDO built it in record time of 12 days with assistance from MHA, MOHFW, Armed Forces and Tata Trust," Shah said in a tweet.
In a tweet in Hindi, Kejriwal said, "DRDO's 1,000-bed coronavirus hospital is ready. I thank the central government on behalf of Delhiities. It (hospital) has 250 ICU beds, which is very much needed in Delhi at the moment."
Shah said an Armed Forces Medical Services (AFMC) team will run the hospital while the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) will maintain it.
An urgent need to augment the existing hospital beds capacity of Delhi for the COVID-19 patients was discussed between the MHA and the MOD on the modalities of deploying a 1,000 bedded hospital in less than 14 days, the statement said.
The hospital will be operated by teams of doctors, nurses and support staff from the Armed Forces Medical Services while the facility will be maintained by the DRDO. Additionally, for the mental wellbeing of patients, the hospital has a dedicated DRDO managed psychological counselling centre. The COVID-19 patients referred by the district administrations will be admitted and treated free of cost at this facility, the statement said. Critical cases will be referred to AIIMS, it added.
The unique centrally air-conditioned medical facility is spread over 25,000 sqm and is equipped with 250 ICU beds. Each ICU bed is equipped with monitoring equipment and a ventilator, it said. The infrastructure is built with a negative internal pressure gradient for safe contagion containment. The facility has been engineered using rapid fabrication technique based octanorm modules.
The hospital consists of a separate reception-cum-patient admission block, medical block with pharmacy and laboratory, duty doctors and nurses' accommodation and four modular patient blocks each consisting of 250 beds, the statement said. The patient facilities include oxygen supply to each bed, X-Ray, ECG, haematological test facilities, ventilators, COVID test lab, wheelchairs, stretchers and other medical equipment, it said.
