Uttirna, a state government-owned six-storey building with an open-air theatre on Alipore Road, will be converted into a facility where Covid patients who have recovered from critical illness will be treated with medicines and oxygen till their condition stabilises.

The health department decided on Friday that Covid patients at Sambhu Nath Pandit Hospital will be shifted to Uttirna after they recover from severe illness as part of the “step down” treatment protocol. “There will be arrangements for continuous oxygen supply. A team of doctors and nurses from SSKM Hospital will visit these patients twice a day,” said an official of the health department.

The cultural complex —which has guest rooms, dormitories and a 10,000sq ft office space — now functions as a safe home for Covid-19 patients under the supervision of Covid Care Network, an organisation of health officials, doctors and those who have recovered from the coronavirus disease.

On Friday, 30 asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic Covid patients were under observation at Uttirna. Five patients were shifted to hospital after their condition deteriorated. “Uttirna can accommodate 250 patients, following their recovery from serious illness. Once their conditions stabilise with medicines and oxygen, they will be shifted to safe rooms where they will stay for a few more days before returning home,” said a senior official of the health department.

“Work on creating an oxygen supply station at Uttirna will start this week and be completed by May 7. The second and third floors of the building will house the safe home. The remaining floors will be set aside for patients from Sambhu Nath Pandit Hospital,” said Satyarup Siddhanta, of Covid Care Network.

Sambhu Nath Pandit Hospital, a Covid treatment facility, has been readied to treat critical patients who have complaints of multi-organ dysfunction following coronavirus infection.

Health department officials on Friday requested the heads of all departments at SSKM to draw up teams of doctors and nurses who will visit the patients at Uttirna.

Besides creating more facilities, the health department has asked the superintendents of all medical colleges and hospitals, particularly the ones in Calcutta, to ensure no patient with severe breathing distress is refused treatment.

There have been complaints that some hospitals have been refusing patients with breathing distress because they could not produce a Covid test result.

“The hospitals have been told that if there aren’t any beds in the Covid wards, these patients will have to be admitted to SARI (Severe Acute Respiratory Infection) wards and made to undergo the rapid antigen test (for Covid),” said G.K. Dhali, the head of the department of gastroenterology at SSKM Hospital and the state’s coordinator for management and containment of Covid-19 cases. “If a hospital is unable to provide a bed to such a patient, it will refer the patient to another hospital where there is a confirmed bed.”