Apollo Hospitals on Monday said it has partnered with a number of corporates such as Hindustan Unilever, the State Bank of India, Deutsche Bank, Oyo Rooms, Lemon Tree, Ginger hotels and Zomato, to launch an initiative — Project STAY I — wherein it aims to make 5,000 isolation rooms available across the country to combat coronavirus ( COVID-19 ).
These rooms will be pooled from Lemon Tree, Ginger and Oyo Rooms at a discount, while Zomato will provide food delivery service, HUL and SBI will pitch in with funds to make some of these rooms available free of cost, and Apollo Hospitals will provide medical supervision.
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“Project Stay I is an initiative to strengthen the bulwark against COVID-19 by creating isolation rooms in hotels with light medical supervision for quarantine and creating a barrier to ensure people recover without spreading the virus,” Dr. Sangita Reddy, joint managing director, Apollo Hospitals Group, said. This will also ensure that people who don’t need hospital beds are not using the scarce resource if they are not critically sick, she said, adding that the project will help to “Break the chain” and is expected to help over 10,000 patients in a month and prevent over 50 lakh infections.
These isolation rooms will be rolled out in Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Delhi, starting with approximately 500 rooms. About 50 rooms will be added every three days to take the total number of such rooms to 5,000 in the country.
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“The model is envisaged to have a combination of self-paying and CSR-funded customers...Owing to SBI & HUL’s generosity, 50% of category 1 rooms (Oyo) would be made available free of cost to those who cannot afford,” Ms. Reddy added. For those who can pay, a room at Oyo will be made available for between ₹700-₹1,200 per night, at Lemon Tree for about ₹3,000 and at Ginger for about ₹2,000.
A guest who wishes to book a room under Stay-I will need to visit www.askapollo.com or call helpline number 18605000202. Once checked into the facility, Apollo Hospitals would provide two virtual medical rounds every day, with a specialist being available round the clock on AskApollo / 24/7 platforms. “The medications or the diagnostics prescribed during the rounds would be door delivered to the person’s room.”
