A centre with 10 beds and piped oxygen supply is being added to an existing isolation facility in New Town.

Even those without Covid-19 positive reports can go to the centre if they feel breathless and get themselves checked by a medical team posted at the safe house, an official of Hidco, which manages the town’s infrastructure, said.

The beds are being set up in a separate wing of the Covid-19 safe house in New Town.

The centre is in a two-storey building near water tank number 12.

“The facility is being set up because it is taking the township’s residents time to arrange oxygen cylinders when someone suddenly feels breathless,” the official said. “It is expected to start operations in the next couple of days.”

Those headed to the centre from Salt Lake will have to take a right turn at the traffic signal just before City Centre II on the Major Arterial Road, drive for around 400m and then turn left. The building is on the main road, adjacent to a children’s park, opposite the Shrachi Greenwood Elements housing complex.

Those headed to the centre from the airport via the Major Arterial Road, have to take a left at the same traffic signal after crossing City Centre II.

“Anybody who has difficulty breathing can visit the centre to use the piped oxygen and be stabilised initially,” a senior Hidco official said.

Debashis Sen, the chairman and managing director of Hidco, said that they took the decision to set up the centre because there has been “a scramble among residents of New Town and Salt Lake to buy or rent oxygen cylinders at home”.

Sen said the idea behind the facility was that residents would not need to keep cylinders at home and the centre would act like a stabilising unit in case someone complained of breathless-ness.

The safe house has trained doctors and nurses.

“People who face breathlessness can come here and get oxygen under trained supervision. In case rapid medical intervention and hospitalisation is required, the family members can get the patient here and oxygen will be administered while they arrange for a hospital bed,” Sen said.

“This will mitigate the need to keep such cylinders at home like many are doing because they are worried about what they will do in case somebody in the family falls sick,” he said.

The Telegraph had reported in April about senior doctors guiding India’s Covid-19 response advising caution against what they viewed as panic-driven actions by some people to seek hospital beds, procure oxygen cylinders or buy vials of the antiviral drug remdesivir for patients who may not need them.

Two doctors, both members of the national Covid-19 task force, had underlined that many Covid patients do not need hospital care.

A scramble for beds or oxygen cylinders could deny these resources to patients who genuinely need them, they said.