MARGAO
“Vaccinate yourself to protect your children”, was the simple message South Goa District Hospital's (SGDH) nodal officer Dr Rajesh Patil conveyed to the people as he returns back to the Goa Medical College, Bambolim as Professor Surgery after being relieved on Thursday.
Even as the 568-bedded South district hospital was playing host to only 72 patients on Thursday, Dr Rajesh sounded a note of caution to the people, not to lower their guard, not knowing when COVID will strike again. “If we really care for our children, we should go for the vaccination and brace up for the third wave”, he told The Goan after the doctors bid him farewell after heading the South district hospital as its nodal officer for 10 months.
When Dr Rajesh had joined the district hospital on September 9 as the nodal officer, the infrastructure in the hospital was still not in place.
”There were no ICUs, no ITUs in place. There was no fire NOC and oxygen. It took us 10 days to complete the process, get the NOCs and put the logistics in place one by one to take care of the first COVID patient on September 19”, he said.
He added: “Initially, we started off with a 150-bedded COVID hospital and slowly and steadily increased the bed capacity to 568 at the height of the second COVD wave. The district hospital is a state of the art hospital with a whole lot of facilities, which came in handy in times of COVID emergency”.
Dr Rajesh said the district hospital is now fully geared up to face any emergency during the third wave. “We should not have any problem with oxygen supply in the future. Two oxygen generation plants are put in place, of which one will be commissioned shortly, which has a capacity to generate 1600 litres of oxygen in a minute. Besides, we have the liquid oxygen facility to meet any emergency”, he added.
Praising the doctors, nurses and the para-medics for their resolve to rise to the occasion to meet the emerging situation, Dr Rajesh said everyone has contributed their lot in carrying forward the health care in the hospital.
He pointed out the administrative front was relegated to the background when COVID had witnessed a surge, with deaths take place almost every day. “We had no time to entry the data of the patients all these months. But, we are putting the administrative aspects in place. Till date, the district hospital played host to around 5200 patients. We are now in the process of recording the data entries of the patients”, he said.
