Hyderabad: Mobile Covid ICU launched

Hyderabad: A Mobile Covid ICU, developed by Grace Cancer Foundation, was launched by the Telangana Health Minister Eatala Rajender here on Tuesday. The Mobile Covid ICU (MCICU) aims to provide advanced critical care to mofussil and rural areas where such facilities are lacking. The bus-based ventilator equipped ICU is mobile and can be positioned in areas of the greatest need.

It has state-of-the-art facilities for ventilators, imaging, tele-Radiology, e-ICU, ultrasound, AI-based risk stratification and contact less sample collection. Speaking on the occasion, the Health Minister felt, "The MCICU will be very useful as it is difficult to collect samples from people in rural areas and it is time consuming for COVID symptomatic patients to reach Gandhi Hospital.

This bus has four divisions including ICU unit, Cancer screening, Mammography, X-ray and Sample collection. From tomorrow onwards it will render services in Telangana. Another 4 buses are being readied," he added. The MCICU brings in a plethora of advantages in an unprecedented situation like this. It will increase the capacity of ventilators where the shortage is likely to be critical, especially in the district and block level hospitals.

Easy mobility enhances the usage potential of the ventilators in a hyper local environment. The cost of building the unit is up to 50% lower than doing the same in a hospital. It can be expeditiously assembled and made functional in less than ten days.

Dr C Laxmareddy, MLA, Dr Chinnababu Sunkavalli, CEO, Grace Cancer Foundation, Rajiv Lal and a host of other dignitaries were present at the launch.