Taking the current COVID 19 situation and its consequences in mind, the Centre and Delhi government announced various steps to rectify health infrastructure in New Delhi on Sunday.
After a meeting with Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and others, Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced that the Centre will immediately provide 500 converted rail coaches to the Delhi government. These coaches will be converted into temporary spaces with beds to treat coronavirus patients. Moreover, with this, Delhi will have 8,000 more beds added to its existing number of 9,800 beds for Covid-19 patients, and these will be equipped with all facilities in the treatment of such patients.
Amit Shah, who chaired the meeting, also mentioned that testing for coronavirus will be doubled in the next two days and increased threefold in six days.
The Centre has also set up a committee, headed by NITI Aayog member V K Paul, to ensure availability of 60 percent of the beds in private hospitals at lower rates for Covid-19 patients. The committee will also fix rates of coronavirus testing and treatment. It will submit its report on Monday.
India continues to witness a surge in the number of cases and deaths due to the novel Coronavirus infection and hospitals are finding it hard to deal with the dead bodies. Last week, the Supreme Court lashed out the Kejriwal government for witnessing the fact that covid 19 patients in Delhi hospitals are being treated worse than animals, as their dead bodies are being found in the garbage.
Supreme Court mentioned that the Government hospitals in Delhi are not taking proper responsibility of the dead bodies. Neither the families of the patients are being informed about deaths nor being able to attend the last rites.
Moreover, The Supreme Court issued notices to State Governments including that of Delhi and also Delhi’s LNJP hospital seeking a reply on the matter.
