Express News Service
NEW DELHI: The Centre has released around Rs 8,093 crore to states as part of phase 2 of the emergency response & health system preparedness package, approved by the Union cabinet in early July with a corpus of Rs 23,123 crore to prepare rural, tribal and semi-urban areas better.
Last month, the Union Health Ministry had already issued Rs 1,827 crore under this scheme, to be implemented from July this year to March 2022 to the states.
The government said that with the released of 35% more funds, a total of 50% of the fund has now been shared by the states, to ensure implementation of critical activities at the district- levels to prepare the public healthcare systems in response to the evolving pandemic.
ALSO READ | Kerala model not working anymore? Experts question high Covid death count The scheme is aimed to accelerate health system preparedness for immediate responsiveness for early prevention, detection and management, with a focus on health infrastructure development including for paediatric care and with measurable outcomes.
Under the ERCP-II, the creation of 827 paediatric units in the districts which will result in the additional creation of 19,030 oxygen supported beds and 10,440 ICU and high dependency unit beds have been planned.
Also, it has been decided to augment 23,056 ICU beds in the public healthcare system out of which 20% will be paediatric ICU beds while to provide care closer to the community due to the ingress of Covid19 in rural, peri-urban and tribal areas, a provision of 8.010 pre-fabricated structures for adding additional beds at government hospitals has been made.
The scheme also looks to establish 203 field hospitals, with 50-100 beds, depending on the requirements posed by the states in tier-II or Tier-III cities and district headquarters which will help in the creation of 13065 oxygen supported beds.
Till April this year, states with supported with Rs 15,000 crore by the Centre for Covid19 preparedness under ERCP-I.
