L&T arm converts govt healthcare units into COVID-19 patient-care facilities

Larsen & Toubro (L&T) on Monday said that its construction arm has transformed established or under-construction government healthcare units into COVID-19 patient-care facilities across the country. 

The company said it has the capability to construct 300-bed hospitals in record three to four months. 

It is capable of quickly turning around existing or under-construction medical infrastructure into COVID-19 related facilities and transform large establishments like marriage halls, schools and hotel rooms quickly into isolation wards.

"The construction arm of Larsen & Toubro (L&T)... turned around large-scale healthcare infrastructure into COVID-19 care facilities in New Delhi, Champaran and Madhepura in Bihar, Puducherry, Diamond Harbour in West Bengal and Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh," the company said in a filing to BSE.

According to M V Satish, Whole Time Director and Senior Executive Vice President (Buildings, Minerals & Metals), L&T, the company's hospitals business unit has been empowering several government agencies to build much-needed healthcare infrastructure during this pandemic.

Three floors of the L&T-constructed 850-bed super speciality, Safdarjung Hospital, have been converted for the care of COVID-19 patients at the request of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in March. 

At the request of Public Works Department, Delhi, the company offered 200 beds of the half-completed 700-bed Indira Gandhi Hospital at Sector 9, Dwarka, as a quarantine facility. The entire ground floor and the first floor of the OPD block with 200 beds have been made operational in quick time.

L&T has handed over the ground and first floors of the Government Medical Hospital in Champaran, Bihar to accommodate 150 beds as isolation wards to treat COVID-19 patients.

The conversion took just 10 days for the L&T team amidst the nationwide lockdown. 

L&T is constructing the Government Medical College with an intake capacity of 100 students per annum and a 500-bed college-affiliated hospital for the Bihar government. 

As per the request by the state government, L&T is modifying a block of the medical college into a COVID-19 testing lab.

This state-of-the-art lab will help the state government to tackle COVID-19 cases more efficiently, it said.

The SSB Annexure block which was designed and constructed by L&T and handed over to Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research in 2019, was also modified to meet the requirements of the state of Puducherry to treat COVID-19 patients. 

In the first floor, 50 beds were converted as isolation wards and another 100 beds in the second floor were converted into a special ward, it said. 

In Diamond Harbour, L&T is designing and constructing a Government Medical College for West Bengal government with an intake capacity of 100 students per annum. 

It is modifying a block of the medical college into a COVID-19 testing lab. 

In AIIMS Gorakhpur, L&T is designing and constructing a Government Medical College with an intake capacity of 150 students per annum and a 750-bed hospital for the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. The company is modifying a block of the medical college into a COVID-19 testing lab.

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