For Covid patients: Ahmedabad’s VS Hospital board members seek HC help to use health facility to full strength

The hospital’s request comes at a time when several private hospitals have refused to come on board to treat Covid patients or continue to negotiate with the AMC on the treatment charges.

Following the Gujarat High Court’s observation on May 22 that approximately 700 beds in VS Hospital can be utilised for treating Covid-19 patients, representatives on the board of management of the health facility urged the court’s intervention so that the charitable hospital can be used to its full strength to treat Covid patients.

A division bench of the HC had proposed the AMC to explore the feasibility of using the 700 beds “at the earliest”.

VS Hospital’s medical superintendent Dr Manish Patel said, “I am not aware of the HC order or any discussion in this regard. The board of management cannot meet anyway owing to the lockdown. But if required, we have the necessary staff and other arrangements available that can be utilised for Covid treatment here.”

After media reports cited that the AMC has said that it cannot run two Covid-19 hospitals from the same campus, the donor families’ representatives, who are on the board of management of the hospital, issued a press note, saying, “At a time when Ahmedabad, like other urban metros, is in dire need of lakhs of hospital beds for infected patients, such a statement reeks of irresponsibility. The state government-run Civil Hospital has three hospitals for Covid patients operating within the same campus… In fact having patients located on the same campus facilitates all logistics of emergency care and timely response. The SVP Institute located on the same campus as the VSH needs to work in tandem and provide services to the poorest of Ahmedabad. Even these in combine will be wholly inadequate to meet the challenge of the emerging crisis.”

The hospital’s request comes at a time when several private hospitals have refused to come on board to treat Covid patients or continue to negotiate with the AMC on the treatment charges.

Mayor Bijal Patel who is also the chairperson of the board of management refused to comment on the plans to reopen VS Hospital while adding “the (municipal) commissioner will speak on this.”

Calls to the officer on special duty for AMC area Rajiv Gupta, as well as municipal commissioner Mukesh Gupta, remained unanswered.