In Gujarat, government hospitals have set aside roughly 766 beds in major cities for patients diagnosed with the Omicron strain. So far, just one 72-year-old NRI who recently returned from Zimbabwe has been diagnosed with the variation in Gujarat’s Jamnagar, where 400 beds have been set aside.
“We don’t know a much about Omicron,” Manoj Aggarwal, the Additional Chief Secretary for Health stated. We’re waiting for WHO, ICMR, and central government directives… Nothing has been learned about how transmissible it is, how symptoms differ…, so we’re separating.”
Even as the state reported 38 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, four each from Surat, Valsad, and Navsari, the Gujarat government put on hold a request from the Gujarat University (GU) to demolish the specialised Covid-19 hospital on its grounds. In Navsari, two 15-year-old students were among those affected. The other two individuals are adults who have been properly immunised.
Three of the four patients in Valsad are fully immunised. Two of the patients had attended wedding celebrations, one worked in a factory, and another had come into contact with a patient, according to Valsad health department sources. All four have been placed in house restriction.
Dr. Ashish Naik, deputy municipal commissioner of Surat Municipal Corporation, stated. “This is a delta variant that occurs in cases from the same family.” All four have been completely vaccinated, and one is under the age of 18. “They’re all asymptomatic.” According to resident medical officer Dr. Ketan Naik, the New Civil Hospital has set aside 300 oxygen beds for Omicron. As of Monday, the 900-bed facility had three Covid 19 patients.
On the first floor of the super specialty block of Rajkot Civil Hospital, 42 Omicron beds have been reserved. Medical oxygen supply concerns that arose in April and May of this year have been resolved, according to district collector Arun Mahesh Babu. He stated that 157 people have been held under monitoring, the majority of whom have travelled to the United Kingdom and Dubai, despite the fact that they all tested negative for Covid upon arrival.
“As per protocol, we’re testing them on the third, fifth, or seventh day.” The collector stated, “We are concentrating on speeding up the immunisation drive.”
From the authorised 200 beds reserved for Covid patients, the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital constructed two Omicron wards, each with 12 beds. Dr. Rakesh Joshi, the medical superintendent, said it might be expanded to 300 beds right away.
Before the Omicron variant was discovered in Gujarat, GU wrote to the state government, requesting permission to close the 900-bed ‘Dhanvantari Covid Care hospital,’ which had been set up with the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), with the assurance that it would be rebuilt if needed. The government, on the other hand, has requested that the university wait a week before destroying the facility.
“The DRDO hospital is currently closed.” If necessary, it will be operational within five days,” said Anju Sharma, senior secretary for labour, skill development, and employment and a member of the hospital’s management committee.
“We’re going with the presumption that the new version would be more contagious, and it’s easier and better to follow tight precautions in the early days,” Dr. Joshi said. Controlling transmission becomes out of control as it spreads, as we observed during the second wave. As a result, the government issued a directive to distinguish suspected or confirmed Omicron cases from other Covid instances.”
Covid patients will be accommodated in 100 beds at Rajkot Civil Hospital, which can be expanded to 1,100 beds if necessary. The hospital’s medical oxygen supply has also been increased, according to Dr Radheshyam Trivedi, medical superintendent of Rajkot city hospital. “We currently have eight PSA plants with a total capacity of 8,000 litres of oxygen per minute,” says the company. Dr. Trivedi added, “We’ve also installed oxygen tanks that can hold 42,000 litres of liquid oxygen.”
Another 100-bed mobile hospital is being built on the grounds of Chaudhary High School, next to the authorised Covid-19 hospital on the civil hospital complex, and is slated to open in the coming weeks.
Babu also assessed Covid testing facilities at the Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Medical College’s microbiological laboratory in Rajkot. “We’ve told the lab to separate VTMs containing samples from suspected Omicron cases and treat them as a priority,” the collector added.
Extended facilities for Covid-19 have been established up in Vadodara, including 300 beds at the Yagnapurush hall of the BAPS Swaminarayan temple in Atladara, 750 beds at MS University’s Samras dormitory, and 500 beds at the Pioneer Institute.
“The oxygen pipelines set up at Yagnapurush were moved to the Gujarat Medical Education and Research Society (GMERS)-run Gotri medical college, and those from Samras will be reinstalled at three upcoming Urban Community Health Centres (UCHC), but the Pioneer network, including an oxygen tank that was set up to treat critical patients, is still a VMC property,” said VMC Medical Officer for Health Dr Devesh Patel.