Railway officials prepare isolation coaches in Kota for Covid patients
KOTA: Amid a growing shortage of beds in hospitals, railways authorities in Kota have converted coaches of passenger trains into isolation facilities for Covid-19 patients.
Such isolation coaches have been kept at platform no 4 of the Kota railway station.
Senior divisional commercial manager, Kota, Ajay Kumar Pal said 20 coaches have been transformed into isolation coaches for Covid-19 patients at the railway station.
“Each coach can provide isolation to 16 Covid patients, so in all 320 patients can be kept in isolation on the coaches,” he said.
“These are all sleeper coaches, so air coolers have been installed in such coaches. Wet jute sacks have also been put on the roofs of the coaches to keep them cool in the summers.”
Pal said the Kota Railway hospital is managing the arrangements at these isolation coaches and interviews of medical staff are being conducted for deployment in them. “If the district administration sends patients, then they will be kept in these isolation coaches,” he said.
About oxygen arrangements, he said, “These coaches are meant for providing isolation facilities to Covid-19 patients, not for their treatment. But two oxygen cylinders will be kept in each of these 20 isolation coaches.”
Pal said, “Railway staff have worked day and night to prepare these isolation coaches in a few days. There will an additional coach for the medical staff.”
He added, “The railways is preparing nearly 4000 such isolation coaches in the country, which can provide quarantine facilities to 64,000 Covid-19 patients.”