Portable cinema becomes 40-bed medical facility with oxygen for Delhi hospital

New Delhi, April 24: A mobile digital movie theatre chain has joined hands with a top hospital group to set up a makeshift medical facility for the Covid-afflicted in the national capital, at a time when hospital beds are becoming increasingly scarce.

The portable cinema company, Picturetime Digiplex, has used its inflatable, expandable and foldable enclosures to deploy 40 beds with oxygen facility at Apollo Hospital, Delhi, within 72 hours.

The inflatable enclosures are normally makeshift cinema halls that can be folded and carried from one place to another, and the concept has been gaining popularity over the past few years. However, with the cinema business paralysed by pandemic, the owners of Picturetime decided to put the concept to noble use, and set up makeshift medical facilities that can be rapidly deployed whenever and wherever needed.

Sushil Chaudhary, CEO and founder Picturetime Digiplex told IANS: "A hospital that is oxygen and bed-ready, with the basic medicines, is the need of the hour. I would create a smaller 40-bed facility with an oxygen plant at the block level and be ready to fight the pandemic from every small town or tehsil or small places near cosmopolitans, and go deeper. Ideally, every block should have an extra infrastructure in terms of a medical facility next to the existing government health facility."

Authorities at Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, on their part, feel such an infrastructural aid can always boost the fight against Covid.

"The innovative technology offered by Picturetime helped create a 40-bed medical unit in under a week that is equipped to take care of varying grades of patients of Covid-19. We are now ready to offer this facility for our patients just when the need is being felt the most," Dr Karan Thakur, Vice President (Operations), Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals said. - IANS