New Delhi: The International Road Federation (IRF) on Tuesday said Jai Prakash Narayan Apex Trauma Centre, which is part of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi, should not be reconverted into a Covid-19 centre in the wake of the threat posed by the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
In March last year, JPNAT was converted into a full-fledged Covid-19 centre and normal trauma services were recently restored there, the global road safety body said in a statement.
Recently, in a meeting chaired by AIIMS director Dr Randeep Guleria, it was again decided to utilise the ICU and ward at the centre to manage Covid-19 cases in anticipation of the expected rise in cases.
“The trauma centre emergency is to be shifted to the main building area at the earliest. The T2ICU (one of the ICUs at the trauma centre) is to be converted into Covid ICU immediately, in addition to the first, sixth and seventh floors. Subsequently, other wards of the trauma centre are to be converted to Covid-19 care facility by the next week,” states the minutes of the meeting chaired by Dr Guleria on December 31.
It also talks about utilising wards in the burns and plastic centre, NCI Jhajjar and other areas for Covid care if need arises.
The International Road Federation said it has written to union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya urging him to step in and not to allow reconversion of JPNAT into the Covid-19 centre.
IRF president emeritus KK Kapila said, “The trauma centre is essentially needed as this is the holistic trauma care centre, which has become a world-famous level-I trauma care centre with an annual footfall of 70-80,000 (only injured patients).”
Kapila added that it has been the only centre in the country providing 24×7 quality patient care with all specialities catering to injured patients. “The centre also catered to complicated trauma victims referred from other hospitals, patients from central armed police forces injured in action, patients of mass and multiple casualty incidents.”
The Resident Doctors’ Association has also opposed the move to redesignate the trauma centre into a Covid facility. “Why cannot the institute use the new buildings – surgical block, mother-and-child block and the private ward – for isolating and treating Covid-19 patients?” one of the doctors wondered.
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