Baptist Christian Hospital, Tezpur, Assam, Northeast India
“We have set up two triage areas—one for the Outpatient Department (OPD) and one for the Emergency Department. A dedicated Respiratory OPD has been set up to see all patients with flu-like symptoms, fever, and respiratory illness. This OPD is equipped with a separate registration and billing counter; lab sampling and portable x-rays are done in the same setting. There is a dedicated pharmacy counter for dispensing medications. All these measures are to prevent any potential transmission from an infected case. A separate respiratory ward has been set up with 20 beds where respiratory cases are being managed separately.
We have earmarked a 30-bed isolation ward in case of an outbreak in our region. Baptist Christian Hospital serves 4 districts in Assam and 3 districts in Arunachal Pradesh.
We are woefully short on Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) such as masks, gloves, gowns, and face shields. We estimate that to run the COVID-19 ward for 30 days we would need 3,570 PPE kits and in reality we have very few. There is also other equipment that we need to care for patients, like a portable ultrasound machine, a portable x-ray machine, and more ventilators.
At present, the lockdown is severely affecting our normal patient flow and therefore our income. Where we would normally see about 300 outpatients a day, we have only had 45. Our inpatient bed occupancy is only about 60 percent of normal.
Please pray for our staff and others around the world who are on the front line of this battle against the virus. Pray that our needs for PPE and other equipment, as well as income, would be met.”
~ Mr. Jagdish Solanki, Managing Director, and Dr. Asolie Chase, Medical Director
Emmanuel Hospital Association Canada 