Ganga Ram hospital seeks more time to convert Taj Mansingh hotel into COVID-19 facility

Sir Ganga Ram Hospital has sought more time to convert the five-star Taj Mansingh hotel into a coronavirus facility in order to increase the number of beds for patients in Delhi amid a spike in infections.

According to an order issued by the sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) of Chanakyapuri on June 16, rooms in the luxury Taj Mansingh hotel in Lutyens' Delhi were placed at the disposal of Sir Ganga Ram Hospital (SGRH) for using it as an attached COVID-19 facility.

According to sources at the hospital, a letter has been sent to the SDM seeking more time to develop the hospital into a COVID-19 facility.

The Jivitesh hotel has also been placed at the disposal of SGRH and will be ready as a COVID-19 facility within this week, the sources said.

At Taj Mansingh, the hospital has been given the eighth, ninth and tenth floors and it has to work out the logistics and train the hotel staff in wearing personal protective equipment (PPE), maintaining hygiene. etc., they added.

The sources said the hospital will take some time as arrangements will have to be made for routes to bring the patients and demarcating areas for the staff where the patients will not come.

It will take another 10 days for SGRH to set up the COVID-19 facility at the hotel since logistics like how to procure oxygen cylinders, staff and how the biomedical waste will be disposed will have to be worked out, they added.

The hospital is facing a staff crunch and will have to accommodate its staff for the COVID-19 facilities at the two hotels.

The national capital recorded 3,000 fresh coronavirus cases on Sunday, taking the city's COVID-19 tally near the 60,000-mark, while the death toll due to the disease increased to 2,175, authorities said.

It was the third consecutive day that the number of cases touched or went past 3,000 in Delhi. On Saturday, the city had witnessed 3,630 COVID-19 cases, the highest single-day spike here. On Friday, the number was 3,137.

As many as 63 fatalities due to the disease were reported in the last 24 hours. The death toll from the coronavirus now stands at 2,175 in the national capital and the number of cases at 59,746, according to a latest Delhi health department bulletin.