On eve of commissioning, questions raised over South dist hospital preparedness as Covid hospital

Hospicio officials informed that they have shifted the OPDs from the district hospital to Hospicio building and is on the job to shift the male and female medicine patients by Friday morning.

This has thrown up a question whether the South district hospital will start accepting Covid patients from Friday and whether the Goa Medical College doctors and paramedics will make it to the district hospital on Friday as per the government’s deadline.

Hospicio sources pointed out that the beds arranged for the male and female medicine patients on the third floor of the district hospital building can be availed of immediately for the Covid patients if the GMC doctors and paramedics are dispatched to the hospital.

Though the government has decided to notify the South district hospital a 250-bedded Covid hospital, Hospicio sources pointed out that the Covid hospital can be made fully functional step by step since it was never in operation unlike the ESI hospital.

“We can start the Covid facility in the district hospital, starting from 50 beds or more, and slowly increase the bed capacity in the coming days. Right now, there may not be all the 250 beds in place at the district  hospital since around 131 beds were shifted from the hospital to the ESI hospital when the later was notified as a district hospital,” sources said.

Interestingly, while more than 100 beds are presently available in the district hospital, Hospicio officials reminded that what is important is not the beds, but the pool of doctors and paramedics to run the hospital and attend to the patients.

Sources said the district hospital has already commissioned the medical gas facility, with a provision to supply oxygen to all the 550 beds on the first three floors of the building.