Kejriwal, Jain inaugurate 450-bed Covid centre in Burari govt hospital
nNEW DELHI: Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal inaugurated a 450-bed Covid-19 centre in a government hospital in Burari on Saturday.
“I am very happy to be inaugurating Burari Hospital today. I could not be there due to Covid and various other arrangements. I visited the hospital a few days back to inspect all arrangements that were being made in the hospital. The opening of this hospital will add 450 more beds to the health infrastructure in Delhi. The two crore people of Delhi along with the central and the state government have attained victory over Corona, but it would not be correct to say that the fight is over,” said Kejriwal in a video address.
Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain, who resumed work on Monday after recovering from Covid-19, was present at the hospital for the inauguration.
The government had decided to open the Burari hospital in May when the number of Covid-19 cases had started going up, with Delhi recording over 1,000 cases a day towards the end of the month.
The number of cases in Delhi have now started coming down with about 1,000 cases being reported each day from a peak of almost 4,000 cases recorded in third week of June.
Only 3,135 hospital beds in the Capital were occupied as on Saturday, against 15,475 available beds.
So far, 129,531 people have been infected and 3,806 have died of Covid-19 in Delhi, according to Delhi government’s daily health bulletin.
The Burari facility was designed to be a 768-bed tertiary care hospital, which has been under construction since the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government’s first full term in 2015. The government also plans to open up another 200-bed Covid facility in its under-construction hospital in Ambedkar Nagar.
The three new hospitals that the Delhi government is constructing in Burari, Ambedkar Nagar, and Dwarka will add over 2,500 beds to the existing 11,770 beds in Delhi government-run hospitals.
“The Delhi government is setting up a new world-class hospital having 700 beds. We are currently providing 450 beds for the treatment of corona patients in view of the prevailing situation. Oxygen facility has been installed on every third bed in this hospital. Besides this, oxygen will be supplied from the cylinder on 125 additional beds,” said Kejriwal.