Telangana ready to fight Covid third wave

The Telangana government has geared up to meet medical emergencies, in case of a third Covid wave in the State.

Senior health officials on Wednesday said that massive arrangements to augment paediatric beds with more oxygen supply lines were taken up in the last few months at all teaching hospitals under Director of Medical Education (DME) and hospitals under Telangana Vaidya Vidhan Parishad (TVVP).

Overall, the State Health Department has added 16,224 beds in hospitals under DME and TVVP with exclusive oxygen lines. The final phase of completing civil works related to oxygen lines for another 10,917 beds is under way, which will increase the overall number of hospital beds with oxygen supply in Telangana to 27,141 beds.

Anticipating a possible rise in paediatric Covid cases during third wave, the Health Department has created 6,000 paediatric beds across all the government hospitals of which 2,000 beds were set aside for Niloufer Hospital alone.

At present, Niloufer Hospital has a



capacity of 1,000 beds and authorities are in the process of completing expansion works that will add 1,000 beds at the tertiary facility. Out of the 2,000 beds at Niloufer Hospital, 500 have ICU facilities and 1,500 beds will have oxygen lines.

Out of the total 6,000 paediatric beds, the Health Department has developed 1,875 ICU beds with ventilators, High Flow Nasal Cannula (HFNC) machines, CiPAP, BiPAP, monitors and syringe pumps only for paediatric cases.

The department has allocated 4,000 paediatric hospital beds which include 1,100 ICU beds to nine teaching hospitals across Telangana. The 28 district hospitals will have 1,400 paediatric beds including 640 ICU beds. A total of 600 paediatric beds including 135 ICU beds will be available at 18 area hospitals across the State.

Senior health officials said that the special arrangements taken up at government hospitals would be enough to meet the demand for hospital beds and oxygen, in case of a third Covid wave.