Army-improvised State-of-the Art COVID-19 Hospital to Serve All Free of Charge

Final touches to open the first-ever biggest Army-improvised COVID-19 Hospital in Seeduwa, equipped with all vital health facilities, consquent upon the generosity, extended by Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Brandix Group, Mr Ashroff Omar are now in progress with the express objective of giving the best emergency healthcare to affected Sri Lankans free of charge, according to General Shavendra Silva, Head of National Operation Centre for Prevention of COVID-19 Outbreak (NOCPCO), Chief of Defence Staff and Commander of the Army.

The state-of-the art facility with emergency treatment unit, isolation sections, resuscitation units, ICU, medical stores, etc is the first of its kind in Sri Lanka that came up in less than a week on an initiative taken by the Army to face with any contingency in the wake of resurgence of the 3rd COVID-19 wave in the country and has the capacity to accommodate 1200 patients at the initial stage after its opening shortly.

The Seeduwa new facility is the third such factory handed over by Brandix to the worthy cause of combating COVID-19 in Sri Lanka, apart from similar quarantine facilities they made available at their sites in Punani and Rambukkana. This Facility was also the first to receive the international recognition as the world's first Apparel Manufacturing Facility along with the LEED Platinum certificate.

"If the worst comes to the worst, we will give all beds in our camps, and provide security staying under trees and would not let a single COVID-19 patient lie on the floor. This improvised new COVID-19 hospital in Seeduwa has been equipped with Army-produced 1200 beds and we will primarily have 5000 beds ready, and the target is to increase it to 10,000 beds around the country within the next couple of days. In this place, isolated medical facilities with separate cubicles and space could cope with 1200 patients on an emergency basis," so asserted General Shavendra Silva, Head of National Operation Centre for Prevention of COVID-19 Outbreak, Chief of Defence Staff and Commander of the Army.

Commenting on the near completion of the largest improvised COVID-19 Hospital in the country, General Shavendra Silva further pointed out that the military has already added more beds to the hospital capacity, intermediate care centres and provided even ICU beds, having established the ICUs by the Army itself. Out of some 86,000 beds in island-wide state hospitals, initially we used only about 5000 beds since capacity for contingencies like COVID-19 is minimal. However, the military made available about 3000-3500 beds at the initial stage. "Yet, establishment of improvised Hospitals like this would ease the congestion as well as the capacity of receiving more and more affected ones. We will not run short of beds and assure that it will be supplied somehow or other," General Shavendra Silva underlined.