Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), which has the reputation of creating infrastructure rapidly in conditions of the medical emergency and has taken upon itself the responsibility of establishing 500 medical oxygen plants under PM CARES within the next three months, has decided to set up two 500-bed Covid hospitals in Jammu and Kashmir—one each in Srinagar and Jammu.
Union Ministry of Home Affairs is understood to be in liaison with the Union Defence Ministry to address the issues of the infrastructure deficit in Jammu and Kashmir in view of the increasing threat of coronavirus in the Union Territory. While the number of the daily infections in J&K has crossed 3,000 and more 30 Covid deaths were reported on Wednesday, 28 April, authorities are apprehensive of 4000-5000 cases/40-50 Covid fatalities within the middle of May.
Hundreds of military, paramilitary and Police personnel are now catching the infection daily, parallel to an unprecedented spike in the Covid-19 infections among the civilians in the terrorism ravaged UT. Normally a number of the patients in Police and security forces, requiring specialised treatment, are referred to different civil hospitals in J&K. However, in the last few weeks, all of these hospitals have been packed to capacity with Covid patients from the local civilian population.
Union Home Secretary, Ajay Bhalla, while chairing a high-level meeting on Wednesday, reviewed the establishment of two 500-bed COVID hospitals by DRDO at the capital cities of Srinagar and Jammu. J&K Chief Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam, Financial Commissioner Health & Medical Education Atal Dulloo, Union Secretaries of the concerned departments and officers from DRDO, Indo Tibetan Border Police and Armed Forces Medical Service (AFMS) participated in the meeting.
J&K Chief Secretary said that the UT had witnessed a consistent surge in patient-load over the past few days. The existing health care facilities were adequately catering to the needs of patients. However, a continuation of this upward trend could lead to a shortage of the Covid beds. To successfully mitigate the shortages in medical facilities, it was requested that two temporary DRDO Covid hospitals be constructed within a short timeframe.
Subrahmanyam said that the upcoming hospitals must be equipped with isolation beds having oxygen support and 125 fully equipped ICU beds.
Assessing the requirement of the dedicated Covid infrastructure in J&K, Bhalla urged the Government of Jammu and Kashmir to immediately identify suitable locations for construction of the 500-bed hospitals while asking DRDO to evaluate and submit corresponding proposal estimates through a team of experts. The meeting was informed that the Government of Jammu & Kashmir had identified two patches of land in Srinagar and Jammu and Srinagar for early start of construction work.
DRDO has the distinction of building 1000-bed temporary COVID hospitals across the country in 12 days each. The proposed two 500-bed hospitals would greatly reinforce medical infrastructure for dedicated Covid care in Jammu and Kashmir. In the last two days, a 110-bed Covid treatment facility was created inside an indoor sports stadium in Srinagar.
