CM inspects Covid-19 centre in CWG village

nNEW DELHI: Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday inspected a 500-bed Covid-19 health care facility being set up at the Commonwealth Games Village near Akshardham temple in east Delhi, where he said that the government will inaugurate its plasma bank on Thursday.

“Delhi is in a stable shape now compared to the previous few weeks. The number of cases is going down even though the government has scaled up testing. This is a good sign and nobody should need these beds, we pray. However, for an emergency, we have the infrastructure ready,” said Kejriwal, who was accompanied by deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia during the inspection.

The Covid facility in the Commonwealth Games Village, which is scheduled to be ready by next week to provide institutional quarantine facility with oxygen support and other necessities to patients with moderate symptoms, will have separate wards for men and women. It will also have a separate section for doctors and health care workers, the chief minister said.

This facility is part of the Delhi government’s health care infrastructure augmentation plan aimed at increasing the bed capacity to 80,000 by the end of July – an initiative for which the government has roped in hotels, community halls, banquet halls, sports complexes, premises of religious institutes, etc. A 10,000-bed facility has been set up in south Delhi’s Chhatarpur under the same strategy.

The centre will need around 300 health care workers, who will be deployed in three shifts. It will be managed by a volunteer group named Doctors For You, said a senior government official.

“The plasma bank will also be inaugurated tomorrow,” Kejriwal said after the inspection.

The chief minister had on Monday said that the Delhi government would soon set up a plasma bank for streamlining of process under which plasma is extracted and administered to a patient with severe symptoms.