Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has said that the Public Works Department will be assigned to convert public buildings into COVID-19 care centres. These include hostels of educational institutions including Arts and Science Colleges, and buildings that have been lying vacant and more.
The Public Works Department has so far converted 93,000 buildings into care centres across the state in the last week, equipped with facilities including beds. The precaution is to accommodate patients if the state witnesses a big jump in the number of infected persons.
The buildings being converted are that of A, B and C categories. Single rooms with attached bathrooms come under A category. In the B category comes rooms of Medical College hostels as the Medical College Hospitals are nearby while that of the rooms of other colleges fall under the C category.
The Building wing of the PWD department has been assigned the task. Around 300 engineers of the department have been working to equip the COVID-19 centres. The works include repairing and maintenance work as well electric and plumbing, while the Health Department will take care of the rest of the arrangements.
The district administration identifies the buildings that can be converted into care centres and informs the PWD. “Our target is to convert one lakh buildings and there should be a minimum of 5000 care centres in every district,” PWD Buildings Chief Engineer Hygiene Albert told TNM.
“This has been listed among the essential services. The staff of the electrical wing has also been drafted into it,” the engineer added. Category A rooms -- those with their own bathrooms -- will be used to house those under isolation, while rooms under B and C category will be used to accommodate those under surveillance.
Some of these centres are already functional.
As on April 1 there are 237 active COVID-19 cases in the state. 24 new cases were reported on April 1. As many as 1,64,130 people have been placed under observation in the state. These include 1,63,508 persons under home quarantine and 622 others in hospital isolation.
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