The district administration, in its effort to increase the number of beds for Covid patients, has added 14 private hospitals for treatment of patients from Sunday evening.

“We have been carrying out treatment at six private hospitals earlier and following the launching of treatment in 14 private hospitals this evening the number of private hospitals offering Covid treatment has increased to 20,” said Dhanbad Deputy Commissioner, Uma Shankar Singh.

The deputy commissioner said all the private hospitals are offering Covid treatment at government approved rates.

The total number of beds rose to 1144 in the district from the existing 910.

The ICU beds for Covid patients have also doubled from 90 to around 180 following the addition of the 14 hospitals.

Singh said that out of the available 1144 beds, around 180 are ICU beds and rest other are non ICU beds. Further elaborating about the bed availability figures he said that out of these 1144 beds, 367 are oxygen supported bed while 777 are non-oxygen supported beds.

Singh said that out of the 367 beds with oxygen support, 131 are occupied and rest are lying vacant.

Among the 180 ICU beds, around 100 are occupied while 80 are still unoccupied.

“We are simultaneously trying to increase the number of oxygen supported beds for which we are in touch with the state government and simultaneously local availability is being ensured through BCCL,Railway, ECL etc,” said Singh.

At present, Covid treatment is being carried out in 27 hospitals out of which 7 are government-run and 20 are private.

Singh said, “As per the state government’s instruction to reserve 50% seats in all private hospitals for covid treatment, we carried out physical verification of around 180 hospitals and clinic out of which the infrastructure and facilities of some were found appropriate for launching of Covid treatment while infrastructure of others was not found appropriate.”

“We have extended the treatment in 14 new private hospitals today and similar Covid treatment facilities will be extended in more private hospitals in phase wise manner,” he said.