Health Minister Veena George has directed that as part of the preparation for a possible third wave of COVID, at least 60% of the paediatric wards and ICUs being planned in all 48 hospitals be readied in the next three months.
A total of 744 paediatric beds, including 490 oxygen beds, 158 high-dependency unit beds, and 96 ICU beds are being readied across districts, in anticipation that paediatric cases of COVID-19 may spike if a third wave of COVID strikes.
Ms. George, who interacted with the officials working as part of the State COVID-19 control room on Tuesday, said that all arrangements were being made to ensure that oxygen requirements would not suffer.
She was all appreciative of the manner in which the State Control room had been functioning round-the clock since the beginning of the pandemic, on January 24, 2020. Similar control rooms are functioning in all districts also.
Over 100 officials in the Health Department are functioning in the State control room, handling various aspects of the pandemic. They work as teams under various heads, data management, surveillance, lab surveillance, call centre management, training and awareness division, materials management, infrastructure, documentation, media surveillance, and vaccination and coordination of various COVID-related activities.
The committees meet every day to share data and to help the government formulate strategies for pandemic management.
