Kashmir Digits

After the decline in COVID19 cases and with DRDO pulling out of the COVID19 hospitals across India, J&K Administration has decided to take over the 500-bedded facility at Khonmoh and convert it into a full-fledged Infectious Diseases Hospital, the first of its kind in the Union Territory (UT).

A top official in the Health and Medical Education Department said that the UT Government was in the final stages of taking over the 500-bedded facility at Khonmoh, a temporary structure set-up by DRDO in May last year for management of COVID19.

The official said that the facility was equipped with state-of-art infrastructure and was expansive.

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“We have well equipped Intensive Care Units with hundreds of ventilators, including those meant for children and infants; we have high-flow oxygen on every bed; we have a huge bed capacity at this hospital. We cannot let it waste,” the official said.

He said that the process of taking over had been initiated. The hospital is still under the Government Medical College Srinagar and is being used to admit any COVID19 case that may need isolation.

Last week, Navin Kumar Chaudhary, who held the post of Principal Secretary to J&K Government for Health and Medical Education at that time, convened a meeting with officials from Directorate of Health (Jammu and Kashmir divisions) and Principal GMC Srinagar.

An official, who was part of the meeting, said it was unanimously agreed that the hospital would be best suited for Infectious Diseases, given its location and infrastructure.

Regarding the manpower required to run the hospital, a top official from the department said that last year manpower was recruited for the hospital on contract.

“Although manpower that had been deputed from other departments and hospitals has been repatriated, this contractual staff is still working with the hospital and will be retained to run the services,” the official said. The official said that in case of a pandemic or epidemic in future, or any infectious disease that required admission to hospital, this hospital would be used to contain the spread as well as ensure specialized services.

“The orders have not been issued yet but there has been a consensus and both Navin Kumar Chaudhary and Vivek Bhardwaj, who headed the Health and Medical Education Department in the past two months, have given a nod to convert the hospital into an Infectious Diseases Hospital, the first of its kind in J&K,” he said.

The building is a private property and was transformed into a hospital in a record time of two weeks just at the tail-end of the second and the worst of the COVID19 waves. The hospital has a mammoth oxygen generation plant.

Another officer in the department said that many types of infectious diseases such as Tuberculosis, Hepatitis, Influenza, Diarrhoeas of various kinds, Dengue, Malaria and others are reported in J&K, and sometimes in large numbers and clusters. “Instead of treating these patients in other hospitals, we can treat them at this hospital. The practice is prevalent in many countries and helps safeguard from spread of infections,” he said.