Now, apartments in Bengaluru offer their facilities as in-house Covid care centres

BENGALURU: The Bengaluru Apartments Federation (BAF) on Monday met bureaucrat Rajendra Kumar Kataria and discussed plans to create health infrastructure on their member campuses to treat asymptomatic Covid-19 patients.
The move comes after the recent spike in cases in Bengaluru. Kataria is responsibile for identifying and establishing Covid Care Centreswhich isolate and treat asymptomatic Covid-19 patients.
Vikram Rai, general secretary, BAF said their apartments have large, indoor spaces such as club houses, indoor sports arenas, party halls and other spaces.These can be used to treat asymptomatic Covid-19 patients.
“We wanted to extend our help to the government. We discussed the initiatives that apartments can take up to set up Covid Care Centres and we’ll present a proposal soon,” he said.
The federation said, "We have 770 apartment associations as members representing over 1.4 lakh apartment units and over 5 lakh residents. As Covid cases across the city have increased in the past few days, it’s imperative that we augment the capacity of the system to handle as many cases as possible."
Facilities where the apartment infrastructure is feasible will enable faster recovery of patients since they will be close to their families. These will be less crowded and more hygienic, he added.
“As there is a shortage of beds in government-facilitated Covid care centres, we’ll contribute our bit in saving beds for other people outside,” said Kiran Hebbar, president, Prestige South Ridge, Banashankari III Stage.
Kataria told TOI that among cases being reported, 85% are asymptomatic and would need isolation and monitoring. “I briefed federation members about how the isolated location should be handled and the medical facilities that need to put in place. This would really help to decrease the rapid spread,” he said.