The initiatives taken by an administrative officer, coupled with certain favourable developments, helped establish a Covid care centre within a week and also make it operational at Subdivisional Hospital at Barhi in Hazaribagh district last week.

“It’s a Covid care centre with 20 oxygen-equipped beds and can be extended up to 30 beds, if required,” said Arvind Devashish Toppo, circle officer of Barhi whose initiatives helped establish it, adding they did it with “minimum expenditure that was also provided by some helpful persons from Bihar and Jharkhand who were currently residing in Sydney (Australia)”.

It all started with his searching for some people who could help his friend’s mother get proper treatment at Sasaram in Bihar, Toppo said when asked.

He had then contacted one of his friends who is a subdivisional officer (SDO) in Bihar and connected him to the local authorities that actually helped his friend’s mother get treatment.

“It was during this conversation my friend, Ashwiniji, told me about some people from Bihar and Jharkhand who were living in Sydney but were helping people in Bihar during the present crisis and could possibly do the same for those in Jharkhand also if approached,” Toppo informed, adding that was how he contacted them and asked if they could help set up a Covid care centre at Barhi.

“I also discussed the matter with the local SDO, Kumar Tarachand who is also a doctor and agreed to extend all help,” he further informed, adding he then held a virtual meeting with Praveen Kumar and Manish Kumar who were in Sydney about a fortnight ago and also spoke to them later when they agreed to help financially.

“SDO sa’ab was very helpful and some others also came forward to help us when they knew about our purpose and we managed to set up the centre by spending about Rs 1.16 lakh only,” Toppo informed adding they used the existing infrastructure of the trauma centre at the hospital while bought some cots from a local supplier who gave those at base price.

They also bought 10 mattresses while the owner of the shop offered 10 more free of cost, Toppo further informed, adding availability of oxygen did not pose any problem while the local MLA also offered to lay oxygen supply pipeline using his local development funds, he said when asked how they could set up the centre with such a small amount of money.

“We also tried to make the centre look beautiful so that the patients didn’t get disheartened by its surroundings and even approached a local group that arranged for playing motivational music for boosting up their moral,” he further said, adding that was how the centre could even handle 25 patients, 5 more than its normal capacity, on a particular day after it started functioning.

But the infrastructure and staff position at many government hospitals, more so at subdivision level, are often far from satisfactory and that may pose problems.

“We also have shortage of staff but the administration has now drawn up a roster and also drafted other doctors to help run the centre and that will hopefully make help us run this centre smoothly,” replied Dr Shashi Prakash, medical officer in charge of that hospital, when asked.