Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma inaugurates 54 new Intensive Care Units in GMCH

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: With the help of the public, the State administration has been able to establish communication with 488 of the 503 people who have returned from the religious congregation at Nizamuddin Dargah in New Delhi recently. With this development, only 15 Nizamuddin returnees are still to be traced.

The swab samples of 361 of the 488 returnees have been sent for test, and the results are expected by Friday noon. As many as 395 people who had come into contact with these Nizamuddin returnees have also been quarantined.

Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma inaugurated 54 new Intensive Care Units (ICUs) and a number of other modern medical facilities in the GMCH (Gauhati Medical College and Hospital) here on Thursday. Talking to the media after the inauguration, Sarma said, “Now the GMCH has 162 ICUs with ventilation facilities under its disposal. The works of 50 other such ICUs will be completed by April 15, and raise the number to 212.”

On the number of people who have visited the Nizamuddin Dargah from Assam, Sarma said, “At first, New Delhi gave us a list of 456. It was followed by another list of 273. Of the total, 226 people were not in direct link with Nizamuddin. We’ve released them after conducting preliminary medical tests. Among the remaining, we’ve established contact with 488 with the help of local people who informed the administration through the helpline numbers. This is indeed a good sign. We keep receiving some unconfirmed reports from Mumbai and Delhi on people of Assam testing corona positive there. I stop short of disclosing all those due to lack official confirmation.”

Meanwhile, the Minister laid the foundation stone of a Rs 276-crore super-speciality hospital on the GMCH premises where two more such hospitals are under construction. Sarma also installed a state-of-the-art 256-slide CT scan machine at the GMCH, besides a cath lab. “This is the second such cath lab in the GMCH,” he said.

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