COVID-19: AMC Acquires 1500 Pvt Hospital Beds for Outbreak

Ahmedabad, May 22 (PTI) In a bid to have beds ready in case of a spike in COVID-19 cases, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation in Gujarat has completed acquisition of around 1,500 beds from 42 private hospitals, said Additional Chief Secretary Rajiv Kumar Gupta, who is overseeing the civic body's efforts to contain the outbreak.

Gupta said, prior to the acquisition of 1,500 beds from 42 private hospitals in the city, as many as 3,000 beds of 31 other private hospitals across Gujarat were already acquired, making it the largest such acquisition in the country by any state to treat coronavirus positive patients.

"The AMC recently requisitioned 42 private hospitals and ordered them to provide 50 per cent beds for the treatment of coronavirus patients. These come to around 1,500 beds. They are in addition to 3,000 government hospital beds," said Gupta, adding that the AMC had already admitted around 500 patients in these private hospitals.

"These 1,500 beds coupled with 3,000 beds of other 31 private hospitals across Gujarat is by far the largest acquisition of private hospital beds in the country by a state," said Gupta.

He said though states like Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh have also issued regulation orders to private hospitals but "the number of actual beds made available in these states by private hospitals is much less than Gujarat".

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)