Centre suggests need for making dedicated COVID-19 hospitals in each district of country

Dr Harsh Vardhan said that detailed guidelines for which category of health worker/professional need to use which category of PPE, are available at the Ministry’s website (www.mohfw.gov.in) and states need to create awareness about their rational use too.

Image courtesy: Reuters

New Delhi: Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Friday (April 10) suggested that there is a need to make dedicated COVID-19 hospitals in each district of the country and notify them as soon as possible so that people are informed about them. 

Through a release, he said that detailed guidelines for which category of health worker/professional need to use which category of PPE, are available at the Ministry’s website (www.mohfw.gov.in) and states need to create awareness about their rational use too. 

"The government is taking several steps along with the states/UTs for the prevention, containment and management of COVID-19 in the country. These are being regularly reviewed and monitored at the highest level," he said while holding a video conference to review actions and preparedness for COVID-19 management with Health Ministers, Chief Secretaries/Health Secretaries of all States and UTs in the presence of MOS for Health and Family Welfare Ashwini Kumar Choubey.

Notably, a video highlighting the appropriate use of PPE in different areas of hospitals has been uploaded and available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzB5krucZoQ&feature=youtu.be 

The government has announced a sanction of Rs 15,000 crore for 'India COVID-19 Emergency Response and Health System Preparedness Package'. These funds can be used for treatment of COVID-19 patients and strengthen the medical infrastructure of the country with a primary focus on COVID-19, the statement said. 

The package will boost the number of COVID-19 testing facilities and can be used to purchase Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Isolation beds, ICU beds, Ventilators and other essential medical equipment and training of medical and paramedical manpower, it said.

39 domestic manufacturers have been developed for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and Government of India has taken all required action to ensure adequate supply of PPEs for our frontline workers across all states, the statement said, adding "Around 20.4 lakh N-95 masks have been supplied to the states and further procurement has already been initiated to address future requirements. Also, an order for 49000 ventilators has been placed and stock is being taken for future requirements."

It further said that the ministry has also issued guidelines on blood transfusions and voluntary blood donation to ensure adequate stocks of blood & blood components, especially for those patients where blood transfusions is a life saving measure. The guidelines are available at https://www.mohfw.gov.in/pdf/NBTCGUIDANCEFORCOVID19.pdf

Additionally, against the projected requirement of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) of 1 crore tablets (including Health Workers dealing with COVID-19 patients, ICU cases and high risk contacts) the availability, as of now, is 3.28 crore tablets, which is 3 times more than required for domestic use in the country. In addition to this, about 2-3 crore more have been stocked up, it said. 

Online training on Pregnancy and Labour Management has been taken up by AIIMS as part of their Webinars and is also available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJwgi1LCu8o&feature=youtu.be

As of now, the capacity of testing is up-scaled through 146 government labs, 67 Private labs with more than 16000 collection centres. On 9th April 2020, approximately 16002 tests were taken up, of which 320 were found to be positive (approximately 2%). This figure, however, varies on a day-to-day basis depending on the samples collected.

The statement further said that technical queries related to COVID-19 may be emailed at technicalquery.covid19@gov.in and other queries on ncov2019@gov.in. In case of any queries on COVID-19, you can call at the ministry's helpline no. : +91-11-23978046 or 1075 (Toll-free). 

List of helpline numbers of states/UTs is also available at https://www.mohfw.gov.in/pdf/coronvavirushelplinenumber.pdf.