Gurgaon admin looks to corporate companies to add Covid beds, set up temporary hospitals

According to officials, in “the next one week or ten days”, around 100 beds will be set up in the city by Hero Motocorp, which has started setting up a temporary hospital with this capacity.

As Gurgaon continues to face a shortage of beds for Covid patients, the administration has started reaching out to several major companies in the district to augment the facilities, with officials revealing that at least 500 beds will be set up in the coming days through this means.

According to officials, in “the next one week or ten days”, around 100 beds will be set up in the city by Hero Motocorp, which has started setting up a temporary hospital with this capacity.

Similarly, the PSA office of the Government of India will also be setting up a 100-bed temporary hospital while DLF Limited has started setting up a temporary hospital. Officials say the hospital will cooperate with a private hospital in the city so that patients from there can be moved to this facility and beds can be vacated at the hospital for critical cases.

Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India Private Limited will also set up a temporary hospital with 100 beds for Covid patients while Mankind Pharma Limited will set up a similar facility with 65 beds, which will also include oxygen concentrators, oxygen cylinders, and experienced doctors, said officials.

The Vedanta Group will be setting up a 100-bed temporary hospital in which 90 will be ICU beds while 10 will be ventilator beds. Earlier this week, officials had revealed that Medanta Hospital and M3M have initiated a tie-up through which beds would be arranged for Covid patients in vacant flats.

“These kind of temporary hospitals will be made to coordinate with big hospitals in the city so that the patients in these can get the treatment of experienced and senior doctors there,” said Deputy Commissioner of Gurgaon Yash Garg.

“In addition, to arrange for doctors and paramedical staff in these, we have asked volunteer doctors, those who have retired, as well as paramedical staff willing to offer their services to come forward and register themselves,” he said.

Apart from assisting in arranging beds, some private companies in the city have offered support to the administration in the form of other health infrastructure. While the Minda Group has vowed to set up a temporary hospital and an oxygen plant, Tenneco Automative Private Limited has offered support by providing medical equipment essential for Covid treatment, worth Rs 1 crore. Writers Company, officials said, will be providing 500 oxymeters and 70 oxygen concentrators under CSR.

The district administration has been working for the last fortnight to arrange for more beds in Gurgaon, with Commissioner Garg, last month, also directing hospitals to increase the number of beds reserved for Covid patients by 60 percent under the general category and by 75 percent of ICU and ventilator beds.

However, the shortage has persisted despite this, with the Covid portal created for real time data on bed availability revealing that, as of 10.50 am on Saturday morning, there were only eight vacant oxygen beds in the district and no vacant ICU or ventilator beds.

Gurgaon saw a massive surge in Covid cases last month, recording a new high in terms of single day spike in Covid cases as well as fatalities earlier this week. For the first time, more than 5,000 new cases were recorded on Thursday, when 5,042 people tested positive, while 14 fatalities were recorded on Tuesday, a new high for the category.

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