Colourful curtains, cartoons painted on walls and a play area with slides adorn the 27-bed Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and a 24-bed High Dependency Unit (HDU) set up at the Sadar Hospital in Ranchi to cater to young patients in the wake of a possible third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The child-friendly décor, however, does much more than adding cosmetic appeal to these facilities, say doctors. The colourful and attractive interiors of the ICUs, they say, help in easing anxiety in children and aid secretion of endorphins, the feel-good hormone, which may improve the pace of recovery.

“Aura plays an important role in recovery of Covid patients. Children suffering from the viral infection would be staying away from their parents and home during the treatment, so the child-friendly facilities have been given a makeover to ensure that the kids feel comfortable and distracted from the stress of being in a hospital,” said Ranchi civil surgeon, Dr Vinod Kumar.

Stress and fear trigger the secretion of cortisol, which often worsens the symptoms in Covid patients and may lead to prolonged illness, said Dr Kumar, adding that children in particular are extremely sensitive to stress and the hospital administration was making all possible arrangements to ensure a positive atmosphere for them.

The hospital administration was making all possible arrangements to ensure a positive atmosphere for kids Manob Chowdhary

The Jharkhand government had earlier directed each of the 24 districts in the state to set up at least a 20-bed special ICU for children to combat the third wave of the pandemic. An expert committee of doctors and health officials constituted by the government suggested setting up at least 1000 ICU beds for children in the state. While 500 beds would be set up in government hospitals, the remaining 500 should come up in private facilities, the committee recommended.

So far, government and private hospitals in Ranchi, East Singhbhum, Koderma, Hazaribagh and Giridih have come up with child-friendly ICUs. Besides Sadar Hospital, Ranchi Children Hospital in the state capital also houses a child-friendly ICU with colourful and attractive interiors.

Dr Ajit Kumar, who has been treating Covid patients at Sadar Hospital in Ranchi, admitted that a positive environment played an important role in healing and children may recover faster if they get positive vibes during their treatment.

It is feared that around 7 lakh of the 1.43 crore population in the age bracket of 0 to 18 years may get affected by Covid-19 in the third wave in Jharkhand. While 2.86 lakh of the patients are likely to be symptomatic, about 8610 of them may show severe symptoms and need intensive care, the expert committee for tackling the third wave of Covid-19 in Jharkhand has predicted on the basis of trends across the world and in India.