Bhubaneswar: Amidst rising number of critical Covid patients and requirement of beds for them at different hospitals, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) Saturday decided to rope in city hotels that will cater to patients having mild infections.
BMC Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Singh chaired a virtual meeting with the owners of major hotels, representatives of the hotel and restaurant association and private hospital authorities to discuss the plan in details. Ideas were exchanged on hospital-hotel tie-up arrangement for isolation beds in hotel rooms having oxygen facility.
“We have discussed the idea of creation of isolation beds with oxygen facility for treatment of mild Covid positive cases (those can be managed on normal oxygen mask or nasal cannula) at different hotels. In case a patient needs special medical attention which cannot be managed at the hotel facility, they can be transferred to a proper hospital. Interested hotel owners can approach the private hospitals of their choice for the tie-up arrangement and intimate BMC of the same,” Singh said.
He also assured that the civic body will play the role of a facilitator for the hospital-hotel tie-up. Meanwhile, all hotel association members appreciated the idea and requested the Commissioner for facilitating the tie-up where their logistics including rooms, beds, house-keeping, food and sanitisation can be leveraged with expert medical services of the tied-up hospitals.
Similarly, while showing their interest for such tie up arrangements, corporate hospital facilities like Apollo hospitals informed that they have already initiated the idea of joining hands with hotels in other states which can be replicated here.
However, this will be a purely paid facility, and patients will have to pay as per their choice of properties selected and as what would be fixed by the tie-up agreement.
PNN