World’s largest COVID-19 care facility with 10k beds inaugurated in Delhi

NEW DELHI: Anil Baijal, Lieutenant Governor (LG), Delhi, inaugurated the world’s largest COVID care facility at Radha Soami Satsang Beas on Sunday, June 5. The facility, known as the Sardar Patel COVID Care Centre and Hospital (SPCCCH), has been created on an emergency basis by the South Delhi District Administration with full support from the Ministry of Home Affairs. The facility has a capacity of 10,000 beds and its construction was completed within a span of 10 days.

Baijal, after the inauguration of the facility, said that it has been developed to help the citizens of Delhi-NCR who are affected by coronavirus. The facility set up in Chhatarpur area of the national capital is the largest of its kind in the world and will function as an isolation centre for mild and asymptomatic COVID-19 positive patients. At least 10% of the beds have oxygen facility in case the patient develops severe breathlessness and requires tertiary hospital care. Operationally, the facility has been linked to the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital and Madan Mohan Malviya Hospital. The referral tertiary care hospitals are Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital and Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital.

While the Delhi government has provided administrative support, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police(ITBP) is the nodal agency operating the Centre under the name “Operation Corona Warriors”. It will be running the first 2,000 beds at present with their 170 doctors/specialists and more than 700 nurses and paramedics. Most of the basic infrastructure such as beds, mattresses and linen has been donated by various civil society organisations and non-governmental organisations. A recreational centre has been made available to the patients along with a library, board games and skipping ropes. People admitted to the facility will be provided five healthy meals a day along with immunity-boosting chawanprash, juices and hot kadha.

SS Deswal, Director General, ITBP, said that a team of counsellors and psychiatrists will also be available at the facility to help those who are stressed or traumatized because of the disease.

The centre has two different segments – a COVID Care Centre (CCC), with 90 per cent of the total beds, where asymptomatic coronavirus positive cases will be treated and the rest of the beds are in a Dedicated COVID Health Care (DCHC), which will treat symptomatic cases and have an oxygen support system. More than 1,000 doctors, nurses and paramedics of the ITBP and other Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), and another 1,000 paramedics, assistants and security staff, have been deployed at the facility for its smooth operation.