Ranchi MP Sanjay Seth on Wednesday spoke to Union coal minister Prahlad Joshi and sought his intervention for setting up a 500-bed makeshift Covid hospital at Mega Sports Complex in Hotwar.
Coal India Limited subsidiary, Central Coalfields Limited (CCL), should take the lead in setting up the hospital equipped with doctors, nurses, paramedical staff and unhindered oxygen supply to attend to the critically Covid patients.
“The Union minister agreed to the suggestion and spoke to CCL CMD P M Prasad. Prasad then rang me up and we had a detailed discussion on the matter. CCL said they will need the state government’s consent,” Seth told TOI.
Seth later rang up the health secretary, K K Soan, and urged him to take initiative on the matter urgently.
“The way cases are rising in Ranchi, there will soon be acute shortage of beds. Some drastic measures need to be taken at once. CCL manages the Mega Sports Complex, where it has been running the Jharkhand State Sports Promotion Society for nearly four years. There is ample space and CCL can use its CSR fund for building the hospital,” Seth said.
Last month, the Ranchi administration had set up an 800-bed isolation centre in Khelgaon. The administration on Wednesday set up a dashboard in its website to provide real time status of bed occupancy in the city’s 19 designated Covid hospitals. “It will provide information on the type of beds available, such as non-oxygen, BPIP, ventilator and ICU. The information will be uploaded by the hospitals on real time basis and it’ll help critical patients immensely,” the district’s public relations officer, Prabhat Shankar, said. As of Wednesday night, the dashboard stated 50% of the 144 ventilator supported beds were occupied.
