By Purushottam P. Khatri
Kathmandu, May 9: The newly constructed and furnished building of Bir Hospital, one of the government owned hospitals in Kathmandu, will now be run as the Unified Central Hospital for COVID-19 treatment. A meeting of the Council of Ministers held at the official residence of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli in Baluwatar, decided to designate the new building of Bir Hospital as the unified central hospital of COVID-19.
According to Minister for Agriculture and Livestock Development Padma Kumari Aryal, an emergency meeting of the Council of Ministers decided to make the new building of Bir Hospital a 500-bed unified COVID-19 hospital. That was the only agenda presented at the meeting and the decision was made after the country started recording mounting number of cases of COVID-19, said Minister Aryal.Earlier, the meeting of the CCMC held last week, had also recommended the government for making the new building of Bir Hospital a COVID-19 special hospital. Along with this, the country's oldest Bir Hospital will now be run by the Ministry of Health and Population as a government's dedicated COVID-19 hospital, she said.
Bir will be run by the Ministry of Health itself for effective work and operations in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic.
Previously, Bir Hospital was under the authority of National Academy of Medical Sciences (NAMS). NAMs will now only look at the academic side. The decision to name Bir's new building as unified COVID-19 hospital will remain into effect until the end of this pandemic, Minister Aryal said. The building will immediately have an ICU with 300 beds having oxygen facility, a 100-bed ICU and a 50-bed ventilator.
The Ministry of Health is going to form a Steering Committee to oversee the hospital, according to joint spokesperson Samir Kumar
Adhikari at the Ministry of Health and Population.
The Steering Committee will be formed under the leadership of Dr. Roshan Pokharel. A separate and fully dedicated COVID-19 war room will be set up in the same hospital to check, monitor and keep the record of availability of beds, ICUs, ventilators and other facilities in all hospitals across the country.
Dr. Adhikari said that a COVID-19 war room was formed under the leadership of Dr. Gunaraj Lohani.
After five or seven days of learning and experience, the Ministry will hand over the authority to establish similar unified command hospital in all seven provinces.
The Ministry has estimated that at least 800 beds can be operated in the new building of Bir Hospital. Under the planning, one hundred beds will be allocated to treat less serious COVID-19 patients while 700 other beds will be used for treating and providing special care for serious COVID patients.