New Delhi, Jul 9 (IANS): Ahead of a possible third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Centre during the first meeting of the new-look Cabinet on Thursday decided to set up paediatric units in all the 736 districts of the country, besides establishing a Paediatric Centre of Excellence (Paediatric CoE) in each State/UT.

It is feared that the possible third wave of the pandemic will impact the children more. Keeping all this in view, the Centre on Friday announced a Rs 23,000 crore second emergency Covid package to improve the facilities in the health sector across the country.

"The Centre aims to set up 20,000 ICU beds in the public healthcare systems, out of which 20 per cent will be pediatric ICU beds," said newly-appointed Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya.

To provide better healthcare to the people, particularly in the rural, peri-urban and tribal areas, it has been decided to create pre-fabricated structures for adding additional beds at the existing CHCs, PHCs and SHCs (6-20-bed units).

Support would also be provided to establish bigger field hospitals (50-100-bed units), depending on the needs in the Tier-II and Tier-III cities and district headquarters.

It has also been decided to ramp up the existing fleet of ambulances by adding 8,800 ambulances under the Covid relief package.

Apart from this, it has been decided to engage undergraduate and post-graduate medical interns and final year MMBS, BSc and GNM nursing students for effective Covid management.