Health Minister J.P. Nadda on Wednesday directed government hospitals to ensure a slew of measures to tackle swine flu (H1N1) including keeping medicines, viral diagnostic kits and N-95 masks.
The minister, who held a meeting with authorities of major hospitals, was informed that in all designated hospitals, beds for H1N1 influenza patients have been tripled compared to last year.
"Number of isolation beds and beds with ventilator are 68 and 40 respectively in Safdarjung Hospital while RML Hospital has 47 isolations beds and 25 beds with ventilator. Lady Hardinge Hospital has designated 25 isolation beds and 14 with ventilator," the minister was informed.
He was told that at AIIMS, the number of isolation beds was 25 and there were 15 ventilator. The number of diagnostic centres has increased from 21 to 34 in the entire country while diagnostic capacity of labs has been doubled in Delhi.
Nadda was also told that a seven-day workshop was organised to provide training regarding ventilator management to master trainers from various states.
"Approximately, 70 master trainers have been trained from 13 states. Besides this, a control room has also been set up, which is functioning in two shifts on working days and in one shift during holidays," he was told.
Last year, Delhi reported over 10,000 swine flu cases.