india

Updated: Mar 28, 2020 08:11 IST

Assam government will set up five new pre-fabricated hospitals across the state with 300 bed each within the next two months exclusively for Covid-19 patients, health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Friday.

The government has also decided to convert three medical colleges in the state into exclusive facilities for Covid-19 patients while private hospitals will bear the burden of all non-coronavirus patients and they will be reimbursed as per laid down norms.

“Each hospital will cost around Rs 40-45 crore. We should be able to construct four of them with contributions made by MPs from the state, state government employees and donations received from the public,” Sarma said.

Assam is yet to record any Covid-19 case, but the government machinery is gearing up to face the outbreak and spread of the coronavirus disease.

“From Saturday, all 36 private nursing homes and clinical establishments in Guwahati will take the entire load of patients coming to Guwahati Medical College Hospital (GMCH),” Sarma said.

The biggest government hospital will be gradually shut down for all other patients except for cancer, gynaecology and emergency departments over the next two days and will be reserved for Covid-19 cases.

The same model will be replicated in Dibrugarh and Silchar medical college hospitals where they will be converted into exclusive Covid-19 facilities. All three will have around 5000 beds in total.

While retired doctors will not be called for treatment of Covid-19 patients, their services will be used to train nearly 1000 final year medical and nursing students who will join work after a week’s training.