AIIMS Delhi to turn newly built burns and plastic block into dedicated COVID facility

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi’s premier healthcare facility, will soon convert its newly-built ‘Burns and Plastic Block’ into a dedicated facility to treat coronavirus patients.

With the number of Covid-19 positive cases surging both in the national capital and across the country, especially after lockdown restrictions were eased and inter-state travel was permitted by the Centre, the need for more hospital beds and ventilators has also been on the rise.

The new dedicated Covid-19 facility is likely to start by the end of this week.

The decision by AIIMS to expand and add to its existing Covid-19 healthcare infrastructure comes after Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday said that Delhi will need at least 1.5 lakh beds in healthcare facilities by July 31, once people from neighbouring states begin coming to Delhi for treatment.

Currently, the AIIMS administration is providing coronavirus-related medical facilities at the apex trauma centre which has a capacity of 250 beds.

The new burns and plastic block is likely to add at least 100 more beds to the existing number of beds dedicated for coronavirus patients.

“We are increasing healthcare facilities for coronavirus patients. Hence, we are working to start the new burns and plastic block into a dedicated Covid-19 treatment centre. This will create overall 350 beds (including 250 beds at the trauma centre and 100 beds at burns and plastic block) for virus-infected patients,” a senior AIIMS official said.

The new block will have 30 Intensive Care Unit beds and 70 beds in the general ward.

The national capital is likely to see a staggering 1 lakh cases of Covid-19 by end June according to a projection made by a five-member committee formed by the Delhi government, which submitted its report recently. By the end of July, Delhi may witness 5.5 lakh Covid-19 cases, the government panel has predicted.

On Thursday, Union Health Ministry data showed a spike of 9,996 new Covid-19 cases and 357 deaths in the last 24 hours. The death toll due to coronavirus in India has risen to 8,102 and the total number of cases now stands at 2,86,579. – Hindustan Times