Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Deputy CM Manish Sisodia and Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain attend a meeting.
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday met Union Home Minister Amit Shah to discuss the COVID-19 situation of Delhi and sought the Centre's cooperation in jointly tackling the situation in the national capital
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During the meeting, the Centre assured that 750 ICU beds will be made available at the DRDO centre.
The Centre will also help the Delhi government in getting BiPAP machines to increase the number of ICU beds at Delhi government facilities.
Besides Kejriwal, Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan and Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal were also present at the meeting.
Also Read: COVID-19 To Come Under Control In 7-10 Days: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal
In the meeting, the Delhi CM also followed up on the Delhi government’s request to increase the number of beds in the Central Government hospitals.
Speaking to mediapersons after the meeting, Kejriwal announced that the number of daily COVID-19 tests would be increased to over 1 lakh to 1.25 lakh.
Kejriwal said, “Home Minister Amit Shah called an emergency meeting over the COVID-19 pandemic situation in Delhi. After this meeting, we have the assurance that all the government agencies of both the central government and the state government will work together to tackle the COVID-19 situation of Delhi.”
Also Read: COVID-19: Amit Shah Orders Air-Lifting Of Doctors To Delhi, Crackdown On Unmasked
He said, “Right now the key problem which we are facing is regarding the number of ICU beds in Delhi. Since October 20, the number of COVID-19 cases in Delhi is increasing at a very high rate. Right now we have a sufficient number of COVID-19 beds but there is a scarcity of ICU beds.”
The Delhi chief minister said that 250 beds will be made available on Monday, followed by 250 on Tuesday and the remaining 250 on Wednesday. “It was also decided in the meeting that the number of tests in Delhi will increase from 60,000 per day to 1 lakh or 1.25 lakh. The ICMR has also assured that they will help us to increase the number of testing,” Kejriwal said.
Last week, Kejriwal had written to Amit Shah requesting him to augment COVID-19 bed capacity in Central government-run hospitals in the capital in view of the surge in cases.
The Delhi government had also reached out to private hospitals seeking to reserve beds for coronavirus patients. On Thursday, the Delhi high court had allowed the state government to reserve 80 per cent of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds in 33 private hospitals for COVID-19 patients for two weeks.
As on date, there are 16,641 beds for COVID-19 patients, of Delhi government hospitals have 5,451, Central government-run hospitals have 3,721 and the remaining are in private hospitals.
The Delhi chief minister also asked the Central government to immediately intervene in the matter of pollution and instruct the neighbouring states to take serious steps to stop stubble burning.
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