India major hospital chains, Apollo Hospitals Group and Max Healthcare have offered to the government to transform one of their hospitals into Covid-only centres in order to stop the “cohorting” of Covid-19 patients with non-Covid-19 patients.
This move comes in response to a government call to private hospital for opening up their facilities to treat Covid-19 patients as the government-run facilities alone are not enough.
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Even the state-owned Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi and National Cancer Institute under AIIMS Jhajjar are also expected to be turned into a Covid-19 only centres, reported Economic Times.
Max Healthcare chairman Abhay Soi told the financial daily: “One of few things which is working in our favour is that India is a couple of weeks behind the curve compared to some other nations on the spread of this pandemic.”
“A key learning from their pitfalls is not to cohort Covid-19 patients with non-Covid ones. Consequently, we are already in talks with the Maharashtra government to convert one of our hospitals there as a dedicated Covid-only facility. We have a 200-bed facility in Greater Noida, which we can also be converted into a dedicated hospital in case of a surge in numbers,”
Max Healthcare has commenced admitting patients at its two hospitals in Delhi from today.
Apollo Hospitals also plans to open its facilities for Covid-19 patients from tomorrow.
Apollo Hospitals vice chairperson Shobana Kameneni told the publication: “We had offered to help the government in creating dedicated Covid-only hospitals but, at present, the government would designate their own hospitals as dedicated facilities. We would have isolation beds and quarantine facilities spread across the country.”
