COVID-19: 70 train coaches to serve as isolation wards in Gujarat

The Ahmedabad Division of Western Railways (WR) on Friday began fast-tracking the work of converting 70 railway coaches into isolation wards for coronavirus suspects to supplement the medical infrastructure of institutional quarantine of the state, especially in Ahmedabad, which is one of the hotspots of Covid-19 in India.

Ahmedabad (Gujarat):Seventy coaches of trains are being converted into isolation wards for suspected COVID-19patients in Ahmedabad Railway Division, an official said. First such coach with all the necessary medical equipment has been readied and parked at Maninagar railway depot. Ahmedabad has been identified as one of the hotspots in terms of the spread of COVID-19.

"Seventy train coaches are being converted into isolation wards for suspected patients of coronavirus. These coaches will be stationed at five depots. At the Maninagar depot, 25 coaches will be set up as isolation wards," Ahmedabad Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) Deepak Kumar Jha said on Friday.

Eight patients can be accommodated in every coach, he said. "The coaches have been changed accordingly and all the necessary medical facilities have been added," he said.

Of the four toilets in each coach, one has been converted into a bathroom. A cabin for health workers has also been created in each coach, Jha said.

"People who require special medical care will have to be taken to hospitals, but those with mild symptoms who require isolation will be kept in these coaches," he added.

He claimed that 5,000 train coaches will be converted into isolation wards with quarantine facilities across the country. Apart from Maninagar, these coaches will be stationed at the railway depots in Ahmedabad and Sabarmati.

Other two depots, which will have these facilities are Bhuj and Gandhidham in Kutch district. So far, 38 persons have tested coronavirus positive in Ahmedabad, of whom four have died.