GUWAHATI: In view of the rapidly increasing number of COVID-19 positive cases in Assam, state health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma held a meeting with owners of private hospitals in Guwahati.
The minister took to Twitter to inform about the same. “In view of the rising number of cases, and likely further escalation, we held a meeting with all private hospitals in Guwahati and instructed them to set up specialised facility and dedicated teams for #COVID19 management. We are in tough times and all must contribute their bit,” read his tweet.
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Himanta Biswa Sarma conducted the meeting with private hospitals to discuss how the spread of this pandemic can be curbed and also discussed the condition of facilities in the state, from the number of hospital beds to other healthcare infrastructure related issues. Private hospitals were also asked to set up specialized facilities and dedicated teams to manage the COVID situation.
So far, no private hospital has been engaged by the government for COVID treatment.
"If any patient comes into our hospital and turns out to be COVID positives, we earlier used to direct them to government allotted COVID care hospitals but now private hospitals like our will keep these patients and continue to treat them It does not mean that the hospitals will be open from today itself, we first need to prepare our healthcare infrastructure for that; which should be ready in 5 to 6 days time. We have now begun creating isolation wards for such patients and we will soon have a separate COVID-wing within the hospital itself," said Uday Sankar Barkataki, Deputy General Manager and Head of Marketing, Apollo Hospitals, Guwahati.
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As per the minister’s latest COVID update tweet, the state recorded 479 new positive cases of coronavirus on July 2, taking the total number of cases up to 9,434. The state now has 3,311 active cases of the virus while 6,106 people have recovered from the viral disease.
On June 29, Kamrup district had gone under complete lockdown for 14 days in order to prevent the virus from spreading more within the community. The lockdown is expected to bring the graph down by July 10 as per the health minister’s estimate.
On July 2, the health minister had also informed of 2 more deaths in the state after which the death toll by COVID-19 now stands at 14.
