Gujarat spares 1200-bed hospital exclusively for coronavirus cases

The Gujarat government on Saturday announced that a 1200-bed hospital in Ahmedabad to be exclusively dedicated for the coronavirus patients in the State.

The total positive cases of COVID-19 in the State have jumped to 13 on Saturday.

Chief Minister Vijay Rupani announced that the new Ahmedabad Civil Hospital having 1200-bed capacity will be exclusively dedicated for treatment of coronavirus-infected patients.

"As a measure of preparedness we are keeping 1200-bed Ahmedabad civil hospital exclusively for coronavirus patients. The existing patients undergoing other treatments currently will be shifted to alternate location of old campus of the civil hospital," stated Rupani addressing media on Saturday.

The total number of positive cases in the State jumped to 13 with six new cases surfacing on Saturday after Friday's reported 7 positive cases.

The Ahmedabad city has seen four positive cases and one case in rural area. Vadodara and Surat cities have three each and Rajkot having one positive case. The virus spread to Gandhinagar as well with one person testing positive for Covid-19 at the State capital.

"The State government is also setting up infection control hospitals at four locations in Ahmedabad, Surat, Rajkot and Vadodara. These hospitals will be developed for all suspected coronavirus cases," said Rupani underlining the government's prompt action on the preparedness to tackle the biggest public health crisis.

Facilities at civil hospital campus

The Chief Minister, who visited the civil hospital campus earlier in the day stated that of the 13 positive cases 12 cases have a history of foreign travel, while one person didn’t travel overseas but travelled from Delhi to Surat via Jaipur. "It is suspected that the person caught the infection during his travel to Delhi and Jaipur. It is heartening to note for us that the spread of the virus is not currently happening from the locals. All the patients are stable at present," he added.

The State government has added one more testing lab to its existing two laboratories with capacity to test 200 samples in a day.

To make administration more effective and quick decision-making, the Chief Minister has assigned four senior IAS the exclusive responsibility to oversee coronavirus crisis in the State.

"We have assigned four IAS full-time after this outbreak. They will be responsible for different zones in the State and will be exclusively working for this health crisis until further orders," said the Chief Minister.

Among the four senior bureaucrats, Pankaj Kumar, additional chief secretary, Revenue department has been assigned Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar zone, Dr Vinod Rao, Secretary, Education department has been assigned Vadodara zone, Rahul Gupta, Industries Commissioner for Rajkot zone and MS Patel, Commissioner of Municipalities has been assigned Surat zone.