The Bengal government on Monday asked private hospitals to increase the Covid bed count or reopen satellite centres they had been running last year for Covid patients, the request triggered by an alarming rise in the number of people testing positive for the coronavirus.
Several private hospitals said they had closed the satellite units following a sharp drop in the number of Covid patients towards the end of last year, a trend that persisted for several more weeks before cases started rising again early March.
“Private hospitals have been told to increase the number of beds. At the same time they should explore the possibility of reopening satellite facilities as the number of cases is rising sharply in and around Calcutta,” an official of the state health department said after a meeting between the department and private hospitals on Monday.