Chennai: Ward at railway hospital in Perambur soon to fight virus-hit children

Chennai, Aug 15: General manager of Southern Railway John Thomas on Sunday said the railway has strengthened the infrastructure to treat COVID-19 patients and it is now setting up a separate paediatric ward in its hospital at Perambur here.

Announcing this after unfurling the tricolour at the railway stadium here on the occasion of the 75th Independence Day, he said the number of beds for COVID-19 patients has been increased from 80 to 280 at the railway hospital during the second wave of the pandemic.

Hailing doctors, nurses and paramedical staff of Southern Railway as COVID-19 warriors, he said the paediatric ward to attend to the affected children is being developed in the new block of the hospital. Referring to trains operated to carry medical oxygen, he said the southern zone ran 214 trains to supply the life-saving gas to Tamil Nadu and Kerala from various destinations. On vaccination, he said as many as 83,000 doses of the vaccine were administered at the hospitals of Southern Railway.

On the performance of the railway, he said 92 per cent of the trains operated before the outbreak of coronavirus were restored and doubling of seven sections were completed in the region during 2020-21.

''Projects like Andipatti-Theni section of Madurai-Bodinayakkanur gauge conversion, Tambaram-Guduvancheri section of Tambaram-Chengalpattu third line project and Thattapparai-Milavittan section will be commissioned shortly," he said.

As many as 65 road-over-bridges (ROBs), road-under-bridges (RUBs) and 28 foot-over-bridges (FOBs) were completed during April 2020-July 2021, he said. A boxing ring and a football ground at the railway stadium at Perambur were inaugurated by the railway official as part of the Independence Day celebrations.

In view of the outbreak, Southern Railway took to live-stream the celebrations through social media platforms.