Apollo Hospitals Group, which operates a chain of hospitals, clinics and pharmacies across major cities, is planning to set up 5,000 quarantine rooms across six cities, while also increasing testing facilities and isolation beds for COVID 19 cases as a part of a comprehensive and integrated response plan, called Project Kavach.
These quarantine facilities, which will essentially be medical rooms in hotels or hostels close to its hospitals, with light medical supervision, will be sort of a barrier before people come into hospitals.
“We have 250 isolation beds available today and we can ramp up to 500. But, more than that we will have quarantine facilities, we will start with 2,000 beds and can ramp up even to 5,000. That would be the first defense. People who come in sick would first go there, get tested for confirmation. Most of them, 80-90 per cent, will get better. Those that require more intensive care, they will be shifted into these 250 (isolation) beds that we have across the country,” Shobana Kamineni, executive vice-chairperson of Apollo Hospitals Enterprise, said.
These medical rooms will be rolled out in Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bangalore and Delhi, starting with around 50 in each city, going up by 50 rooms every three days, to reach an eventual target of 5,000 rooms across the country. The first such facility will be launched on Saturday, Kamineni said.
The total number of coronavirus cases in the country climbed to 649 on Thursday. Many experts have called for a significant increase in testing if this outbreak has to be controlled.
Apollo Hospitals currently has four testing facilities, which are being increased to 17.
“Testing is a critical part of breaking the chain. Most Apollo centers have been cleared for COVID 19 testing, the full infrastructure is expected to be in place and full scale testing to start by the end of March,” said Sangita Reddy, joint managing director of Apollo Hospitals.
The hospital will make provisions for home collection of samples, too.
Reddy added that once the extensive testing begins, a number of positive cases will come up and those will have to be strictly isolated. This is where the medical rooms will come in handy.
