All government medical colleges in districts will henceforth act as COVID-19 ‘war rooms’ in Karnataka. An entire floor in these colleges will be converted into a full-fledged isolation zone with 150- 250 beds, ICUs and required number of ventilators, Medical Education Minister K. Sudhakar said on Monday.
Briefing presspersons after an emergency meeting with directors of government medical colleges, the Minister said private medical colleges will be roped in districts where there are no government medical colleges.
Only 17 districts have government medical colleges in the State.
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“In Bengaluru, we are holding talks with various medical colleges such as East Point Medical College, Akash Institute of Medical Sciences and Research and MVJ Medical College. In private hospitals too we want to convert one floor into an isolation zone. We want to make sure that we have at least 3,000 beds for isolating patients in Bengaluru,” he asserted.
To ensure timely testing of samples and reduce the load on the existing labs, the government is planning to set up more testing centres in Belagavi, Kalaburagi, Hubballi and Mangaluru. “We have already announced that testing centres will be set up in Hassan, Shivamogga and Mysuru. Three labs are already functioning in Bengaluru,” he said.
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COVID-19 helpdesks will be set up in medical colleges. Whatever additional manpower required to run these facilities in the medical colleges will be provided to them, the Minister said.
Jawaid Akhtar, Additional Chief Secretary, Health and Family Welfare and Medical Education, will review surveillance measures taken in districts to tackle Covid-19 through video conference every day, Mr. Sudhakar said.
“We are doing all that is required to contain the spread of the disease in stage two, at the cluster level itself. In future, if required we are ready to convert vacant government and private buildings into treatment facilities,” he said adding that doctors, paramedics staff and other health workers who are in the forefront of these disease control measures are the “real heroes.” “They will be provided insurance and additional incentives, he said
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