From Our Special Correspondent
GUWAHATI: Private hospitals in Assam will now take the burden of general patients in the wake of the state government deciding to dedicate at least three medical colleges to the treatment of novel coronavirus (COVID-19).
The Assam government has signed MoUs with 35 private hospitals of Guwahati in this regard whereby the hospitals will take the load of the general patients of Gauhati Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) for at least two months from Saturday.
“From tomorrow, all the private hospitals of Guwahati will take the burden of patients, who generally come to government set-up hospitals, mainly GMCH. The private hospitals will be paid by the government on the rate fixed by national health authorities for the purpose of Ayushman Bharat,” state health and family welfare minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, told reporters here on Friday.
“GMCH will be completely dedicated for coronavirus patients. However, the cancer and maternity wings apart from emergency wards of GMCH will function normally. Similar arrangements will be made with the private hospitals in Dibrugarh and Silchar in the next two days and in this manner we will have about 5,000 dedicated beds for COVID-19 in three medical colleges,” he said.
It may be mentioned that the state government had already dedicated three facilities in and around Guwahati for treating COVID-19 patients, even as not a single positive case has been so far detected in the state.
“The state government will also set up five pre-fabricated hospitals exclusively for COVID-19 treatment with 300 beds each through public-private cooperation and two locations — Guwahati and Dibrugarh — have been identified so far. The five hospitals will be ready in the next two months,” Sarma said.
He further said that a new team of about 1,000 doctors are being prepared for deployment in the six medical colleges of Assam for treating COVID-19 patients.
“Medical, dental, ayurvedic and nursing students in the final year will be trained from tomorrow for about a week and we will have four teams ready for the purpose along with a battery of 600 more doctors posted in rural areas,” he added.