KCR Has Given Top Priority to Health Infrastructure Since Telangana Formation: KTR

10-Bed-ICU (10BedICU.org) is a PPP (private-public-partnership) project between the state government and a group of NGOs. Under the banner of 10-Bed-ICU,  the first critical care ICU unit was launched in the Narayanpet district of Telangana. The goal of the 10-Bed-ICU project is to cover every district in India with at least one 10-Bed-ICU facility to combat Covid waves in rural India.

Minister KTR and Vinod Khosla, Founder Partner, Khosla Ventures, CA, USA were Chief Guests for the event.

“After the formation of Telangana, CM KCR has given a top priority to Healthcare infrastructure in the State. In the last seven years, Telangana Govt. has added 1600 ICU beds apart from setting up five new medical colleges, while another 7 medical colleges are under pipeline,” said Minister KTR during the virtual launch of the Telangana 10-Bed-ICU Program. 

Minister KTR also highlighted that the Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad presently has one of the largest ICUs in the country with 600 beds.

Minister KTR promised his active support of the 10-Bed-ICU project to not only cover 33 district & area Govt. secondary hospitals in Telangana, but also to help take this initiative to the rest of the country. The Minister listed several initiatives in Telangana to prepare the state for the 3rd and subsequent Covid waves.

Vinod Khosla who has already funded several 10-Bed-ICUs in Telangana, announced today at the launch event that he will further fund 100 more district hospitals with 10-Bed-ICU across the country. He stressed the need for a technology platform and remote specialist assistance to help rural hospitals. His tweet in response to the oxygen distress in New Delhi to fund any hospital that needed assistance got retweeted 20,000 times and got a lot of momentum in highlighting the acute shortage of critical care – esp. in rural India. 

Mahesh Bhagwat, IPS, Commissioner of Police, Rachakonda extended his support for expanding the program beyond the state of Telangana and stressed the importance of preparing during peacetime for the needs of a wartime situation.

Srikanth Nadhamuni the founder CTO of Aadhaar, the co-founder behind 10-Bed-ICU said they would launch ICU units in every district of the country. The program consists of 10-Bed-ICU equipment donation, Covid Management Technology Platform, Doctor Connect program to get specialists through Telemedicine from India/US/UK to help our rural patients and a live training module to train doctors, nurses and ANMs on the ever-changing pandemic. Currently, they are working in 4 states - Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka & Maharashtra, and in talks with 8 other states.

Dr. Harichandana Dasari, IAS, District Collector and Magistrate, Narayanpet expressed her gratitude to the program and to the donors for providing the critical support of the 10-bed ICU in Narayanpet District Hospital. 

Nagesh Gouravanam, one of the co-founders of the program, thanked the dignitaries, District Collectors, donors and other participants for supporting the program.

The 10-Bed-ICU project is a partnership of 5 NGOs - eGovernments Foundation (egovernments.org), Nirmaan Organization (nirmaan.org), Karuna Trust (karunatrust.org), CoronaSafe (coronasafe. network) and GiveIndia(GiveIndia.org) Foundation. They came together to rapidly deploy ICU units across rural India in order to combat the spread of the Covid virus in rural India.