Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday said the number of intensive care unit beds at two hospitals treating coronavirus patients in the Capital has been increased sufficiently and the government is trying to scale up numbers at other facilities too. Kejriwal’s remark came a day after he flagged a scarcity of ICU beds in Delhi.
“Till a few days back, LNJP [Lok Nayak Hospital had 60 ICU beds and Rajiv Gandhi hospital had 45 ICU beds,” Kejriwal wrote on Twitter. “They [ICU beds] have been increased to 180 and 200 respectively. After making sufficient arrangements for COVID hospital beds, Govt [the government] is now making all efforts to increase ICU beds.”
Earlier in the day, Kejriwal and Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia visited the Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital to review arrangements for coronavirus treatment.
On Sunday, Kejriwal had said that nearly 10,000 beds were unoccupied in Delhi as most of the coronavirus patients were recovering at home. “There were around 2,300 new patients daily last week, no [number] of patients in hospital has gone down from 6,200 to 5,300,” he had said.
At a press conference before his hospital visit on Monday, Kejriwal also appealed to recovered coronavirus patients to come forward and donate their plasma to critically ill patients. “The demand for plasma is more but the supply is less,” he said. Kejriwal had launched a first-of-its kind plasma bank in Delhi last week.
The number of coronavirus cases in Delhi crossed 1 lakh on Monday. The Capital recorded 1,379 new cases in 24 hours, taking the overall count to 1,00,823. The toll rose by 48 to 3,115. More than 72,000 patients in Delhi have recovered.
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