Ranchi district administration have started exploring possibilities of setting up of 40-60 bedded dedicated children ward for Covid-19 at Sadar hospital as part of their advance planning to tackle the pandemic amid concerns of a possible third wave that will impact kids.

Deputy commissioner Chhavi Rajan on Tuesday said that they are exploring different plans to ramp up childcare covid facilities on war footing to be better prepared to tackle any challenges in days ahead.

“I have inspected Ranchi’s sadar hospital today along with other officials to scout for space. On the ground floor and on few other floors, we have space where we can set up children’s ward for Covid-19. I have asked the authorities to prepare a formal plan for setting up of 40-60 bed facilities so that we can formally begin work after government’s nod,” he said talking to reporters at the hospital premises.

Earlier in the day, Ranjan and his team had gone to Rani children hospital, a dedicated hospital for kids, near Radium road. Ranjan said that the purpose of the visit was to walk through the medical infrastructure that is in place at this hospital and also interact with doctors on further requirements to deal with the pandemic.

Notably, the move comes in the wake of a meeting chaired by health minister Banna Gupta with top officials of the health department three days ago to chalk out modalities for the third wave.

Gupta pressed for the need to be ready with child ambulances, mobile RT PCR testing facilities, special Covid kits for children in home isolation and beds in pediatric wards for children who contract the infection. He also asked officials to hold a meeting with all pediatricians of the state and prepare a roadmap to tackle the third wave of infection in Jharkhand.

After the outbreak of the second wave in the last week of March this year, medical infrastructure in the state began to crumble as the rate of infection peaked.

By the first week of April, chaos prevailed everywhere including in Ranchi with hospitals running out of beds and people even struggling to get covid tests done, necessary medicines among others.

However, the situation has now stabilized to a large extent in recent weeks as the state government went on to more beds on war footing across different districts and rolled out different initiatives like oxygen banks, online bed booking portal among others to tide over the crisis.