6,500 more beds to be made ready for COVID-19 patients in Karnataka soon

6,500 more beds to be made ready for COVID-19 patients in Karnataka soon

Mangalore Today News Network

Bengaluru, July 01, 2020:    In order to increase the treatment capacity for COVID-19 patients needing active medical support, the Karnataka government is adding 6,500 beds across the state in the coming days, reported The Times of India.

 

The state government has decided based on the diagnosis that patients who do not need active medical care will be kept in COVID-19 care centres.

For this same purpose, the state government will hire 1,500 doctors and 6,000 nurses too, in the near future.

In a meeting chaired by Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa and attended by private hospital representatives on Tuesday, it was decided that 4,500 beds in 11 private medical colleges in Bengaluru will be made available for this crisis.

It was also decided that all private hospitals having more than 200 beds will have to reserve 25% of their beds for COVID-19 treatment.

The Hindu reported that this will increase the number of COVID-19 beds from 2,200 to 4,500 in private facilities alone.

All these beds have been promised to be made ready in a time of two weeks.

This was the second successive day that the CM met private healthcare players to increase the scope of pandemic management in the state.

Further efforts were made to make beds available at government run medical colleges across the length and breadth of the state.

Medical Education Minister K Sudhakar and Revenue Minister R Ashoka along with Chief Secretary Vijay Bhaskar, were also part of the meeting.

Speaking after the meeting, Minister Sudhakar said that three government medical colleges in Bengaluru alone have kept 1,000 beds along with oxygen and ventilator facilities available for COVID-19 treatment.

He further said a central allotment committee will keep in touch with nodal officers of these medical colleges for scientific allotment of beds. On the issue of pricing, prices fixed by the government will also apply to private medical colleges just like in the case of private hospitals, he said.

The Hindu reported that this bed allotting facility will soon take off in Bengaluru in the next 2-3 days quoting a note from the Chief Minister’s Office.

In addition to the beds, the CM also said that to ramp up the state’s testing efforts, all medical colleges in the state barring 10 will be equipped with COVID-19 testing labs.

Courtesy:The News Minute