Harsimrat Badal ties up with HMEL refinery to provide Oxygen for 100 bed COVID facility of AIIMS as well as other hospitals
Bathinda, May 5, 2021:
Former union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Wednesday diclosed the HMEL refinery would provide Oxygen supply to a new 100 bed Covid facility being developed by AIIMS as well as hospitals in the region.
Disclosing this, Mrs Badal said she held a virtual conference with AIIMS Director Dr DK Singh on Tuesday evening during the course of which the need to augment oxygen facilities, increase Covid beds and hire doctors and nurses was raised. “I took up the matter with the HMEL management which has assured to provide Oxygen to AIIMS as well as other hospitals in the region. My effort is to augment both the oxygen and bed facilities to such an extent that AIIMS and the HMEL refinery can jointly create a facility for handling 500 Covid patients in the next two to three weeks”.
Badal said the AIIMS Director had informed her that the institution had ordered hundred beds and that there was a capacity for a further hundred beds which could be augmented in the next phase. “I have assured the AIIMS management of full support for extending further facilities to Covid patients from my MPLAD funds”.
The Bathinda MP said the SAD was simultaneously also making all out efforts to provide succour to Covid patients in this hour of crisis. She said SAD President Sukhbir Singh Badal had requested the Shiromani Committee to convert the ‘serai’ attached with Takth Damdama Sahib at Talwandi Sabo into a hundred bed Covid care center.
She also requested chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh to assist AIIMS, Bathinda by helping it to acquire another 2,000 to 3,000 Oxygen cylinders. She said her chief minister should also take necessary action to augment oxygen supply as well as dedicate more beds for Covid patients in the State. “Right now, we are facing a health emergency. The Congress government should take necessary measures to ensure Covid patients have access to quality healthcare. This could even include taking up beds from private hospitals on fixed charges basis”. She also urged the chief minister not to delay recruitment of medical staff to run hundreds of ventilators which were lying unused. “A special speedy recruitment drive should be completed in this regard in next few days and the ventilators should be installed and made functional as soon as possible. Each second wasted is increasing the death count in the State which is already double than the national average”.