A COVID-19 Care Centre (CCC) will be set up at Beedi Workers’ Hospital in Kalyanagiri in Mysuru on Monday.
Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) Commissioner Shilpa Nag, who visited the hospital with former Minister Tanveer Sait on Friday, said the centre will be operationalised at the Beedi Workers’ Hospital in a phased manner from Monday.
Once fully operational, It will have about 150 beds including 50 oxygenated beds, Ms. Nag said. “We have received more than 800 cases of COVID-19 in Mysuru in the last few days. The severity of the infection is more this time and the mortality rate is high,” she said emphasising the need for setting up more CCCs across the city in addition to the private and government hospitals. She said the MCC was committed to providing the physical infrastructure for the facility, but added there was a shortage of medical and paramedical staff for the purpose. “We need to recruit more people,” she said.
Mr. Sait said centres were opened at Farooqia Institution in Udayagiri and Andalus School in Rajiv Nagar to treat COVID-19 patients last year. Though the CCCs were opened as a voluntary initiative last year, the government too extended support to the facilities by providing PPE kits and medicine worth ₹2 crore.
“We will start with about 16 oxygenated beds at the new centre right away. We want to increase the number of oxygenated beds to 50, besides have 10 ICU beds and another 5 to 6 beds with ventilator,” he said.
The MCC Commissioner’s announcement on setting up of a CCC at the hospital comes in the wake of a letter written by Mr. Sait to Deputy Commissioner Rohini Sidhuri in this regard. In the letter, Mr. Sait said the Department of Health and Family Welfare should take over the hospital and convert it into a CCC in the light of the rising cases in Mysuru.
Pointing out that Narasimharaja Assembly constituency did not have any hospital facility in the government sector, Mr. Sait said the authorities should take necessary steps to convert the Beedi Workers’ Hospital into a CCC.
Vaccination
Mr. Sait also claimed that a lot of residents of Narasimharaja Assembly constituency had overcome vaccine hesitancy. In response to his appeal, the DC had extended the timing for vaccination till 8 p.m. from 6 p.m. to facilitate persons, who are fasting during Ramzan.
Appealing to the public to come forward and get vaccinated, Mr. Sait said he had also taken the first dose like many other corporators of MCC. “Vaccination is for our safety,” he said.
