Kolkata: Taking a major step towards augmentation of health infrastructure, the Mamata Banerjee government is increasing 2,274 beds in state-run hospitals across Bengal for Covid treatment. The state will witness the record one-time-increase in the number of beds during this festive season with Durga Puja just a couple of days away. Following directions of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to take up the work of increasing the number of beds on an immediate basis, the state Health department is increasing 1,639 "general oxygenated beds" and 635 ICU beds in 32 state-run hospitals to provide absolutely free-of-cost treatment to patients at this critical time of the pandemic. The move to further increase the number of ICU beds has been taken to provide treatment to patients in critical condition. With the increase in the number of beds in hospitals across the state, there will be as many as 14,390 "general oxygenated beds" beds that at present stands at 17,751 while the ICU beds will go up to 1,878 from 1,243. The completion of the task to increase the number of beds will be done within a month, that is during this festive season itself. According to a senior official of the state government, the number of beds for Covid treatment in private hospitals is also increasing. There are at present 93 hospitals dedicated for Covid treatment, including 55 private hospitals, those the state government has requisitioned. The private hospitals were also being urged by the state government to take immediate steps to increase beds at the earliest. Sources said all district authorities were informed about the move taken by the state government to increase the number of beds in a video conference from Nabanna with top brass of the state administration. Subsequently, senior officers of the state Health department also held another video conference with all District Magistrates to chalk a detailed plan of action to increase beds in both state-run and private hospitals. Accordingly, the hospitals were identified after assessing the basic capacity and infrastructure needed to increase the number of beds. Besides Calcutta Medical College and Hospital, NRS Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, number of beds are also increasing in district hospitals, including North 24-Parganas, Hooghly, Howrah, Nadia, Birbhum, Purulia, Malda, East Burdwan, West Midnapore, Jhargram, Murshidabad, Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar, Kalimpong and Alipurduar. Highest number of "general oxygenated beds", that is 250, is increasing at ESI Baltikuri in Howrah followed by additional 200 beds at Jalpaiguri Biswa Bangla Krirangan, 150 beds at Hooghlys Chandernagore Sub-Divisional Hospital and 100 at Calcutta Medical College and Hospital. The maximum number of ICU beds is increasing at MR Bangur Hospital with the addition of 70 more ICU beds. This comes when 4,029 people tested Covid positive and the disease claimed 61 lives in the past 24 hours. At the same time, 43,762 swab samples were tested on Tuesday and the percentage of positive cases out of the samples tested was found to be 8.07 percent.

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