The Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital has converted the speciality block on its campus into an isolation ward to treat patients for COVID-19.
The six-floor building inaugurated in 2014 houses 12 speciality wings including cardiothoracic surgery, plastic surgery, medical and surgical oncology and neurosurgery departments in addition to trauma care and radio diagnostic surgery sections.
R. Yeganathan, Medical Superintendent, MGMGH, said that only eight patients were undergoing treatment at the burns ward on the fourth floor during the last few days.
They have been shifted to the old block to make room for the isolation facility, he said.
All six floors will have a general ward and an intensive care unit for COVID-19. On the first three floors, including the ground floor, there will be 100 beds. The third and fourth will have 60 beds while the fifth and sixth floors will have 110 and 90 beds each.
The ground floor and first floor will have an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) with 30 and 18 beds respectively.
The de-addiction Centre which is already being used an isolation ward and a unit under-construction will house 20 general ward beds and 12 beds in the ICU.
The total capacity of isolation facility at the MGMGH is 640 beds at the general ward where patients are kept under observation. The ICU strength is 60 beds.
Dr. Yeganathan said the unit at the de-addiction Centre would be used solely to monitor patients who test positive for COVID-19. ‘We have a total of 85 ventilators and are well-equipped to handle patients,’ he said.
