B'luru civic body building to be eveloped as Covid hospital

Bengaluru, July 8 (IANS) The Karnataka government is developing a city civic body building into a full-fledged Covid hospital to scale up the health infrastructure amid the Covid-19 pandemic, said a minister on Wednesday."Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) building on the broad way road in Shivajinagar is being developed as a full-fledged Covid hospital," said Medical Education Minister K. Sudhakar.The minister inspected the facility on Wednesday for which Infosys Foundation is providing the necessary infrastructure at a cost of Rs 30 crore."The hospital will be functional in another 10 days," said Sudhakar.Initially, 180 beds with high flow oxygen lines will be available in the hospital, which can also be converted into ventilator facilities when needed.Equipped with 30 ventilators, the new hospital will have neurosurgery and cardiology operation theatres and CT scan facilities.Later, Sudhakar also visited Bowring and Lady Curzon hospitals to inspect the facilities and interacted with patients through videoconferencing.Currently, Bengaluru is the ground zero of the Covid pandemic in Karnataka, accounting for 9,395 of the total 15,297 active cases.The southern state has seen a total of 26,815 cases till Tuesday.
--IANS sth/skp/