Bengaluru,  The Private Hospitals & Nursing Homes Association (Phana) on Monday set up a portal to provide bed status in private hospitals across Bengaluru for treating Covid patients under their quota.

"A dedicated portal 'Search My Bed' has been launched to provide information on bed availability in the city's private hospitals under their quota, which is 50 per cent of their capacity, for treating Covid patients," said Phana in a statement.

To meet the growing demand for beds due to rising cases during the pandemic's second wave, the state government has directed private hospitals and nursing homes to reserve 50 per cent of their beds to treat Covid patients referred by its Health Department or state-run hospitals.

"As the central bed management system has information on availability of beds under the government quota, our portal will show bed status in private hospitals under their quota for admitting Covid patients," said the statement.

Of 11,000 beds in state-run and private hospitals across the city, 5,013 of them were allocated through the system over the last 5 days.

"Covid patients who want to get treated at private hospitals, can check their bed status for admission at the earliest," said the association.

The portal provides the number of Covid patients in private hospitals under their quota, bed status/availability and their contact number for admission, as the data is uploaded in real time.

Private hospitals are required to upload data on general, HDU, ICU and ICU-ventilator beds available and this should be displayed at their help desks for the benefit of Covid patients.

Meanwhile, non-profit organisation Give India Foundation offered to set up a 500-bed transit Covid Care Centre (CCC) at Bangalore Palace grounds.

"We are planning to use the corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds of private companies to strengthen the Covid care infrastructure in the city," said Deputy Chief Minister C.N. Ashwaha Narayana, the Chairman of the newly set-up Covid task force to contain the pandemic across the state, in a statement here.

As an online donation platform, the Foundation provides resources to NGOs across the country for various public causes. Its founder Atul Sateja assured Narayana that the organisation would support the state government in augmenting the medical infrastructure in CCCs across the state.