Oxygen concentrator banks have been set up in each district of the national capital to ensure timely access of medical oxygen to COVID19 patients, Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi Chief Minister said on Saturday.
Each such bank will have 200 Oxygen Concentrators and they will be home delivered in two hours for those in home isolation. This service is being extended by the Delhi government in partnership with Ola Foundation and GiveIndia, Kejriwal told a digital press conference.
Even patients who had returned home after COVID19 treatment can avail this service, he added.
Any patient who wants to avail the service can dial the helpline number – 1031 – to get added to the list of patients isolated at their homes, he said.
Meanwhile, Kejriwal also said that there has been a further drop in new Covid cases and Delhi has in the last 24 hours reported 6500 infections as compared to 8500 in the previous day. The test positivity rate has also come down to 11 per cent as compare to 12 per cent in on Friday.
“While we hope that Delhi won’t see a surge again, we are not letting our guards down and are prepared from our end. In the last 15 days, we have added more than thousand ICU beds in the city. Our doctors and engineers have set a precedent and have worked really hard”, he added.
Despite the sharp drop in new COVID19 infections daily tally in the recent days, the Delhi government is widely expected to further extend the lockdown from May 17 by another week. The traders community however want the Delhi government to reopen partially from Monday instead of extending the lockdown completely.
GRANT TO MCD
At a separate media briefing, the Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Saturday announced that Delhi government was providing a grant of ₹ 1,051 crore to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to enable it to disburse salaries to employees involved in Covid 19 duty.
“It has come to our notice that municipal Corporation of Delhi, due to its incompetence and corruption, has not been distributing salaries to its employees in the midst of a pandemic. It reflects very poorly on the MCD if they are unable to even pay salaries to medical staff, doctors and nurses who are putting their lives on the line to save people in these unprecedented times. To cope and emerge from this pandemic, Delhi government has issued assistance of ₹ 1,051 crore for MCD, in such a manner that MCD can effectively disburse salaries to employees who have not been able to receive it until now.
We hope that MCD’s leadership will guarantee that this assistance is not used for any other activities, not diverted in any way, but used only to pay salaries of MCD employees involved in COVID-19 duty”, Sisodia said.