New Delhi, Apr 24 (IANS): As the crisis in treatment of Covid affected people is increasing and hospitals running out of oxygen, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh held a review meeting on Saturday on the ministry's preparedness to deal with the current situation.

He held a Covid-19 situation review meeting with Chief of Defence Staff, Service Chiefs, Defense Secretary, Chairman DRDO, DG AFMS and other senior officials of the ministry.

Further, Armed Forces Medical Services (AFMS) has deployed additional doctors, including specialists, super specialists and paramedics, at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (SVP) COVID hospital in Delhi to cater to the current surge in Covid cases.

As against 294 doctors and health workers in 2020, 378 have been mobilised in 2021. These include 164 doctors in 2021 as against 132 doctors in 2020. Last year, only 18 specialists were mobilised, as against 43 specialists and 17 super specialists this year.

The highly-skilled specialists and super specialists have been deployed in the facility this time from the already stretched resources of the service hospitals.

This year, when the facility was reopened on April 19 with provision of 250 beds, all the 250 beds were occupied within two hours of opening the facility, owing to the enormous surge in cases in Delhi.

All these patients were critical and oxygen dependent. The critical patients admitted this time are in excess of more than 85 per cent at any given point of time.