Gill wins Rally of Arunachal; Mangalureans Dean Mascarenhas, Ashwin Naik finish second, third

Bengaluru, Feb 17: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday assured that the Centre is committed to stand by its promise of providing Rs 18,600 crore Bengaluru suburban Rail project.

Addressing a press conference after a post-budget interactive session with the representatives of the various trade bodies, industry leaders and others here, she said that the union cabinet has already given its clearance for the long-pending project.

Informing that the central government will have 20 per cent of its capital share in the project followed by another 20 per cent share from the state government, she said "beside this, the union government will stand for a sovereign guarantee for the rest of the 60 percent share, which can be raised through loans from external agencies".

Bengaluru, Jul 4: In a heart-wrenching incident, a 65-year-old coronavirus patient at Hanumath Nagar in South Bengaluru died outside his house waiting for an ambulance on Friday evening. The body was kept on the road for more three hours.

The deceased tested positive for coronavirus on Friday and immediately called an ambulance to reach a hospital. However, according to his family members, as he waited for the ambulance for nearly three hours, he collapsed on the road in front of his house complaining of breathlessness and died.

As the body lay unattended on the road, it began to rain heavily. Soon, videos of the body lying on the road in the heavy rain went viral on social media. 

A senior doctor in charge of the division, however, claimed that the ambulance had arrived in less than half an hour but the patient had died before they reached the spot. 

"The patient had given samples on Thursday at KIMS and tested positive on Friday. BBMP officials informed them that they would reach his house. But the man, fearing that he may be stigmatised in the locality, began walking to the corner of the road and collapsed on the street and died," the officer said. 

Another health official from Basavanagudi limits said: "As the ambulance staff do not transport the dead, they informed the hearse van, which was set to arrive in 30 minutes. But due to the sudden rain and heavy traffic ahead of the curfew hours, they were stranded for almost three hours later." The officials also said the deceased had been suffering from cardiac ailments for almost 10 years. 

Regretting the incident, BBMP officials said they were helpless as was an acute shortage of hearse vans. "We were told that there were 20 deaths today and there are only eight hearse vans available. They had to shift this patient after attending to another mortality and were stuck in traffic. By then, due to the fear of infection, nobody attended to the deceased," the officer explained. 

BBMP commissioner B H Anil Kumar said that such incidents should not recur and ordered an investigation and sought a report. "We will ensure that such incidents do not recur," Kumar said.  

Following outrage on social media, a hearse van was summoned and the body was shifted to the Victoria Hospital mortuary as per the protocol. Police have opened a case of unnatural death.

Bengaluru, Jul 13: The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has initiated the process of recruiting 1,700 medical professionals, doctors, staff nurses and support staff to scale up its workforce to set up 30,000 COVID-19 care beds, an official said on Sunday.

According to the official, to establish and run 30,000 COVID care beds, 1,800 doctors and 3,600 nurses are required. A 10,100-bed facility was set up last week in the Bengaluru International Exhibition centre (BIEC) on Tumkur road.

The Health Department has calculated that one doctor per shift is needed for every 100 patients and one staff nurse for every 50 patients. Similarly, two supporting staff and three Group D employees are needed per shift for every 100 patients. Generally, a day is divided into three shifts of eight hours each.

According to the director of medical education, there are 25,000 nursing students who have completed GNM and BSc Nursing courses and are pursuing higher education.

Likewise, there are 3,231 medical, dental and Aayush interns, while MD and MS postgraduate students have been identified to be 1,613 in Bengaluru colleges.

"The department plans to actively utilise the services of interns and postgraduate students for the COVID Care Centre (CCC) operations," said the official.

Currently, there are 2,100 CCC beds operational under the civic body in Bengaluru with a pool of 503 doctors, 167 ayush doctors, 128 nursing and paramedical staff.

Earlier in May, the civic body also notified the recruitment of 380 microbiologists, technicians and data entry operators for six months. In June, the civic body again notified the recruitment of 637 doctors, nurses, technicians and group d employees to strengthen its fight against the pandemic.

Bengaluru has recently seen a spike in COVID-19 in Karnataka, accounting for 61% of all active cases in the state.

On Saturday, the city reported 1,533 new cases, taking its total tally to 16,862, of which 12,793 are active.

Karnataka recorded 2,798 more coronavirus cases and 70 more casualties on Saturday evening, raising the state's total cases to 36,216 and the death toll to 613.