‘Government Medical College Jammu has made far-reaching improvement in Covid mitigation measures over the past year.“We have increased the number of Covid-care beds, installed a dialysis facility and started an oxygen generation plant in addition to a number of other improvements,” said Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery, GMC Jammu, Dr Kailash Singh.Giving details, Dr Kailash informed that the hospital now has more than 8 hundred beds dedicated for Covid patients in addition to 87 critical care beds. He informed that, ‘last year, the hospital had to depend on Gandhi Nagar government hospital for dialysis but in response to Covid-19, a similar facility has been installed here also’.Referring to the fresh surge in Covid cases, he said “the health system is functioning at its peak capacity and health workers are putting in all possible efforts to augment the system by each passing day.Dr Kailash urged the public not to heed to rumours and said that there is no shortage of oxygen at GMC and other allied hospitals.``In addition to its existing oxygen generation plant, GMC has made functional a new 2400 LPM capacity plant in its premises since last week. Moreover, we also have a liquid medical oxygen reservoir of 20 thousand kilolitres capacity which is replenished every day’, he informed. The Assistant Professor said that the second wave of Covid is due to our collective failure as society. ‘We made mistakes during the ‘unlock’ period. We gave precaution a skip and allowed mixing of populations. Lab tests have discovered a large number of mutant strains in the population of J&K and it is a cause of serious concern, he said. ‘Earlier the virus used to fatally infect mostly the older population, its mutants have started indiscriminately affecting all age groups’, he added.
Dr Kailash appealed to all to keep observing Covid appropriate behaviour and maintain social distance while meeting people. Asymptomatic people are equally capable of sharing the infection, warned the doctor.Meanwhile, the Hospital management informed that reversing a long trend, 69 patients have been discharged today from Government Medical College Jammu and associated hospitals after recovery, including 31 from GMC Jammu, 2 from SMGS, 11 from Chest Disease & TB Hospital, 8 from SSH Jammu, 2 from Psychiatric Hospital and 15 from MCH Gandhi Nagar Jammu.Similarly the deaths due to the infection have also dropped to 12, including 11 in GMC Jammu and 1 in Chest Disease & TB Hospital.In GMC and associated hospitals, 88 new positive cases have been admitted which include, 44 in GMC Jammu, 04 in SMGS Hospital, 13 in Chest Disease & TB Hospital, 5 in SSH Jammu, 4 in Psychiatric Hospital and 18 in MCH Gandhi Nagar Jammu. Till date 5935 persons have been admitted, 3100 persons have recovered and 706 have died in GMC and associated hospitals till the outbreak of pandemic last year. Moreover, as per the health authorities all Covid-related queries and doubts can be cleared on the helpline number 0191 2571616. Public can also call the Divisional Control Room at 0191-2520982, 2549676, 2674444, 2674115, 2674908. Moreover, J&K Government has started a live phone-in health programme on Gulistan channel which is aired twice daily- from 8:30 am to 9 am and 8:30 pm to 9 pm. The Eminent doctors respond to public queries during the programme. Anybody from the public can call on the above-mentioned Divisional Control Room phone numbers and seek information related to Covid treatment, home isolation and other non-Covid health problems.