Delhi Govt Directs Iconic Taj Mansingh Hotel to Reserve All Rooms for Covid-19 Patients

In the first such move, the Delhi government on Tuesday directed the 5-star Taj Man Singh hotel to isolate all its rooms and place them at the disposal of Sir Gangaram Hospital with immediate effect to accommodate Covid-19 patients.

The national capital is fast running out of hospital beds amid a surge in coronavirus cases and is struggling to contain the pandemic, after critics said it did too little to prepare and reopened shopping malls and temples too soon.

Taj Mansingh Hotel is located in the heart of Lutyens' Delhi. The order also said that the hospital would be responsible for proper disposal of biomedical waste generated at the hotel.

All hotel staff will be provided with protective gear and basic training to handle COVID-19 patients, it said.

Ambulance for transfer of patients will be the hospital's responsibility, while food, housekeeping service and disinfecting of premises will be done by the hotel.

The charges for using the rooms will be collected by the hospital, which will then hand it over to the hotel, the order said.

If the need arises, the hospital can arrange for the stay of its doctors, nurses and paramedical staff at the hotel itself. The hotel and the hospital management can decide the rates mutually, the authorities said.

Some families of people infected with COVID-19 have complained about having to hunt for beds for their relatives after hospitals turned them away.

Others said patients had been left unattended in corridors of government-run hospitals, while local media reports of dead bodies in a hospital lobby prompted the Supreme Court to order the AAP government to get its act together.

Less than a month ago, Kejriwal said the city's hospitals were well equipped to fight the virus as the lockdown had given authorities enough time to prepare. "Delhi will win, corona will lose," he said.

While Delhi had around 10,000 novel coronavirus cases at that time, the number had jumped to 41,000 on Monday. India's total numbers stood at 3,32,424, with Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai fueling the rise in infections.

Cases in the capital are set to surge. The government estimates it will have 5,50,000 COVID-19 cases by the end of July, around 13 times current numbers, and will require 150,000 beds by then.

(With inputs from PTI)