SOLAPUR JN

Central Railway

Press Release

Central Railway’s BharatRatna Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Memorial Hospital, Byculla committed to serve 24x7 towards handling of Corona Pandemic

BharatRatna Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Memorial Hospital team is working o­n war footing in fight against COVID 19. Looking at the COVID-19 pandemic situation worldwide with outbreak in India too, BharatRatna Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Memorial Hospital, Byulla started preparation in the first week of March itself.

Intensive and repeated training of Doctors and staff were conducted including ventilator workshop, Donning and Doffing of PPE, Infection Prevention & Control Measures, Protocols for management etc as per the latest guidelines of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Indian Council for Medical Research & World Health Organization to all.

Training workshops have been organised for doctors and staff of both Byculla and Kalyan railway hospitals through live programme from Delhi o­n Novel coronavirus infection. Awareness programmes are being carried out through display of posters as well as playing video clips o­n the televisions of OPD waiting areas and wards. As per norms, 10% of total hospital beds were identified and a separate isolation ward o­n 2nd floor was made as per the norms including donning, doffing areas etc isolating from other areas of the hospital with separate entry and exit. All necessary equipments like oxygen cylinders, concentrators, portable X ray machine, thermometers, stethoscope, sanitizers etc were arranged with separate nursing station, doctors’ room etc.

Development of infrastructure & rigorous training of doctors and paramedical staff to handle all types of COVID & Non-COVID patients 24x7 in this COVID Pandemic situation has o­nly been possible because of the dedicated team of dotors and paramedics working under the dynamic leadership of Dr. Y.S. Ataria, Principal Chief Medical Director of Central Railway & Dr. Meera Arora, Medical Director of BharatRatna Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Memorial Hospital, Byculla. Divisional Railway Hospitals at Kalyan, Bhusaval, Pune, Nagpur and Solapur have also trained doctors and paramedics so that all types of patients can be attended round the clock.

Control room is setup in Emergency department of hospital with provision of new mobile number as well as land line number. Simultaneously a separate dedicated FLU OPD was started to recognize and sort all patients with COVID19 at first point of contact with health care worker near the entrance of main gate of Hospital with thermal scanning of each and every individual.

COVID19 Testing facilities started by empanelling labs and regular tests are being carried out o­n Indoor patients of Dialysis, Chemotherapy, Radiotherapy, Pregnant & Preoperative Surgical cases and contacts of positive cases.Byculla Hospital also successfully established tie ups for testing facility at Divisional Railway Hospitals, Kalyan and Pune as well as helped Jagjivan Ram Hospital, Western Railway, a dedicated COVID Centre to enter into tie up. A dedicated ambulance is kept for transport of COVID patients as well as suspected COVID patients.

Byulla Hospital is shouldering the responsibility of the Non COVID OPD & Indoor elective & emergency tertiary level cases of not o­nly CR & WR but also from other zones.Till the end of May 2020 apart from all the OPD & Indoor cases of Central Railway & all referred cases from other zones, BharatRatna Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Memorial Hospital has handled more than 1000 non-COVID patients of Western Railway too. From April 2020 to till date, the 24 X 7 Casualty has handled total 2303 cases.

The Hospital Infection Control Committee (HICC) is doing yeomen service by ensuring that all COVID Infection Control Procedures as per guidelines are being followed by o­ne and all in an utmost vigilant manner. This ranges from the compulsory use of the designated masks by not o­nly the Health Care Workers but also by the OPD & Indoor patients and their attendants, ready use of sanitisers, practicing of social distancing, displaying of educative posters & signage, proper disposal of wastes.

Byculla Hospital is also simultaneously shouldering the heavy-duty high-risk responsibility of the new additional COVID Service areas like the 24x7 COVID OPD, 24x7 COVID Casualty, 24x7 COVID Quarantine Centres, 24x7 COVID Triage Ward, 24x7 COVID Ambulance service as well as the COVID testing facility.All the pre and post workup and management of the patients returned back or discharged from dedicated COVID CENTREs are being attended and managed properly providing all essential treatment.

A robust Hospital Management Information System is in place with a dashboard to enter information of all COVID related activities daily o­n a real time basis which is useful for generation of daily updates and reports and liaison with the MCGM authorities for quarantining, tracing and containment purposes.

Team Divisional Railway Hospital Kalyan performs timely emergency operation and saves life

A patient named Surekha Devi was in critical condition with severe abdomen pain and informed that she had a life-threatening tubal pregnancy by a private hospital.She reported to Divisional Railway Hospital, Kalyan in the intervening night of 7/8.6.2020.Casualty duty doctor informed the gynaecologist o­n call, Dr. Rafiqul Islam, Senior Divisional Medical Officer who alongwith Dr. Yuvraj Chauke, Divisional Medical Officer (Anaesthetic), Mrs. Lovey Bau, Mrs. Elizabeth Jacob (Operation Theatre Sisters) and Mr. Sachin Aware, Dresser immediately arranged the operation within 30 minutes and the patient’s life was saved by timely surgical intervention.During the stressful time of COVID pandemic, the emergency o­n call team of doctors and paramedics of Divisonal Railway Hospital Kalyan showed utmost professionalism and efficieny.Shri Shalabh Goel, Divisional Railway Manager, Mumbai Division has recognised and appreciated the efforts of the team Kalyan Hospital.

The corona warriors - A dedicated team of doctors and paramedical staff working 24x7 are giving their untiring services round the clock to take care of the patients to save their lives.

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Date: June 10, 2020

2020/06/11

This press release is issued by Public Relations Department, Central Railway, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus Mumbai.

Central Railway

Press Release

Shramik Specials – Central Railway rises to the need

Gigantic exercise in planning, maintaining and running trains during COVID19

Subsequent to the MHA's order regarding movement of migrant workers, pilgrims, tourists, students and other persons stranded at different places by special trains, Railways is operating “Shramik Special” trains form 1st May 2020.As o­n date, about 600 “Shramik Special” trains have been operated from Central Railway to various states across the country.

On request of state government, Shramik special train operation was started from various stations of five divisions of Central Railway. The formation of rakes, sanitization, maintenance of those rakes, fulfilling the requirement of staff, provision of food, co-ordination with state governments, safe, punctual train operation & overall mission “Back Home” was a big challenge under COVID19 circumstances. The Railway man is taught for safe operation of trains in fair and rough weather, during accidents and break downs. But running Shramik Specials with maintaining the medical and social protocols as mandated for Covid-19 was a huge challenge thrust upon Railways, which it completed with a great level of success.

The Indian Railways stepped into the monumental task with no precedence or past experience of this magnitude to refer or rely o­n. For the Railways, as the most affordable, safe and mass mode of transport, it was a conscious call of duty.

In all, so far CR has run about 600 Shramik Specials carrying more than 8.5 lakh migrants to their destinations. These Shramik Specials were run for many states:Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telagana, Tripura, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.The mission “Back Home” operation or train operation for sending the migrant workers back to their home involved direct train services from Central Railway to states of Jammu & Kashmir, Telangana, Tripura, Mizoram and Manipur for the first time.

Of the total trains operated about 66% were run by Mumbai Division, about 23% by Pune division & about 11% by Solapur, Bhusaval & Nagpur divisions. As maximum trains were run by Mumbai division, the other four divisions put in their might by maintaining 8-9 rakes at their depots o­n days when demand peaked.

Planning, Maintenance, Running of Shramik Specials:

Beneath the veneer of an orderly train schedule were the "behind the scene working". The operation staff for overall co-ordination, Mechanicalstaffwho maintained the coaches, Electricalstaff for maintaining the locomotives, running the trains,maintaining the electrics at stations and in coaches, Security i.e. RPF for maintaining queue formation, thermal screening of passengers, Commercial staff for liaison with the State Government authorities, allotment of seats, arranging meals & co-ordination with IRCTC,Engineering, S&T & OHEstaff for maintaining the assets like track, signals, OHE , Medical staff/Doctors to attend emergency cases / give medical aid etc, were coordinated with clock like precision work. A dedicated team of officers in co-ordination with state government authorities made the gigantic task easy and simple.

War room behind the scene:

The control office working 24 X 7 for monitoring, planning of trains; officers’ physical availability at stations, control offices and round the clock o­n tele-conference for co-ordinated efforts to run Shramik Specials safe, punctual & as per the demand of state government.

With staff living scattered in Mumbai, some in containment zones, the o­nus of train operation squarely rested o­n the shoulders of the limited staff & officers, who never left their guard down and worked tirelessly till dawn o­n most days to ensure everything is going well.

Amid lockdown, Central Railway staff rose to the occasion. Many staff i.e. corona warriors reached the offices by starting early in the morning by walk and other means and made it possible to run the Shramik specials.

Bulk of the operations at LTT, CSMT and Pune

The contribution of Station Director, Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (LTT), Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus Mumbai (CSMT) and Pune needs a special mention, because they not o­nly handled large volume of Shramiks, they also had to coordinate with the different departments of the State govt and NGOs who were o­n the forefront in trying to help the migrants safely to their homes.They could not leave the station premises till the last of the migrants had left and then had to plan every detail for the next day, co-ordinating with the Mechanical and Electrical stafffor the maintenance of rakes, the physical count of the migrants with the commercial staff and tie up with station house keeping staff for the necessary sanitisation of the premises. They worked with their team tirelessly all through this without a break, compromising sleep and rest.

For all the officers and staff of Central Railway, this kind of exposure was a new learning curve, which few manuals will teach and a truly satisfying experience.

Together we can fight Corona.

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Date: June 9, 2020

2020/06/10

This press release is issued by Public Relations Department, Central Railway, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus Mumbai.