Lucknow's KGMU to kickstart a dedicated COVID hospital in the RALC building

Owing to the dynamic upsurge in the number of cases in the city, over 1000 cases a day, King George's Medical University has decided to open up a new dedicated COVID hospital in the Rehabilitation and Artificial Limb Centre. This 320-bed facility will be inaugurated by the Chief Minister on Monday evening and will boost up the medical and treatment facilities in the city, strengthening its defence against the virus.

Facilities at the hospital

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The new hospital at KGMU is equipped with 100 intensive care units, including 6 each for PICU and NICU. The other remaining beds have oxygen facilities and can be used HDU or high dependency beds as well. With 4 operation theatres, 1 labour room, the new facility will boost the treatment facility of severe cases as well. Additional facilities of dialysis, USG, Echo, CRRT and X-Ray will also be made available for the patients. Other benefits, such as pharmacy, pathological and microbiological facilities, a kitchen, laundry, and mortuary would also be present.

This decision was undertaken not only because the city is dealing with an exponential rise of transmissions, piling the caseload but also because the COVID care facility in the KGMU campus was run at the Infectious Diseases Hospital which made the non-COVID staff vulnerable to the virus as well. As many as 300 staffers, including doctors and front line coronavirus warriors and other employees of the hospital, were infected with the virus infection. The new facility is located in the RALC building which earlier housed 3 departments related to orthopaedics, artificial limbs, and rehabilitation and rheumatology.

Capital Caseload

Lucknow is currently dealing with 8,542 active cases in city hospitals, including those in both home isolation and in other COVID care facilities. As the daily average crosses the 1000 mark in the city, the transmission rate has been determined at 2.4%. With 23,520 recoveries and 437 virus fatalities, Lucknow is within the clutches of the deadly coronavirus.

Knock Knock

This shift to the periphery will arrest the spread of virus within the campus and the increased facilities from the current 216 beds, 60 ICUs, 40 HDUs, and 116 isolation beds to improved facilities and equipment will boost the treatment facilities. The inauguration of the facility was delayed due to the employees' resistance to convert the RALC building into a COVID centre.