Parties on hold, banquet halls to perform Covid duty

New Delhi: Delhi government ordered the conversion of several banquet halls, one school and Yamuna Sports Complex into temporary Covid hospitals on Wednesday to augment the number of beds needed for the rapidly growing coronavirus victims. Delhi reported 17,282 new Covid cases in the last 24 hours, and the number of active cases crossed 50,000, the highest since the outbreak in the capital.Together, the banquet halls and other facilities will add over 1,100 Covid beds.
These new facilities will be linked with major hospitals, which will provide necessary doctors, staff, health infrastructure and consumables. Less serious patients will be shifted to these care centres to decongest hospitals and reserve the beds for critical patients.
Shehnai Banquet Hall, with 120 beds, has started functioning. The patients are provided food and indoor pastimes like carrom, ludo, etc. The banquet hall centre is being managed by a private organisation, Doctors for You. With Grand Utsav Banquet in Rohini (75 beds), Masaic Sandoz Banquet in Wazirpur (250 beds), Golden Tulip Banquet Hall in West district (110 beds), these will augment beds by 875 beds. The other banquets halls, Crystal Banquet in Laxmi Nagar (50 beds), Ajija Banquet and Kundan Banquet in Kapashera (150 beds), Ashirvad Banquet in Janakpuri (25 beds) and some others, will together induct 250 additional Covid beds. Rouse Avenue School on DDU Marg will be a 120-beds care centre, while Yamuna Sports Complex in Vivek Vihar will have 200 beds.
In a separate order on Wednesday, Delhi government announced the linking of hotels, including some five-star hotels, to different hospitals in a bid to boost the Covid infrastructure.
During earlier waves too, banquet halls had played a crucial role in Covid care, taking significant pressure off the Covid hospitals enabling them to devote more resources to critical patients. According to the government order, the district magistrates will arrange beds with mattresses and pillows, while the banquet halls are expected to depute their housekeeping staff to the hospitals they are linked with. “The cost rates of treatment at banquet halls and other facilities will be provided by the divisional commissioner in due course,” the order stated.