kolkata the pandemic has actually proved to be a blessing in disguise for bengals health infrastructure which has witnessed a major upgrade and augmentation of facilities since it broke in early 2020 including a critical care unit ccu in every subdivisional hospital of the state prepandemic to now there has been a 1000 jump in number of ccus in state hospitalswhen the pandemic broke out there were a total of 327 critical care beds in staterun hospitals this number now stands at 4585 health officials said that this would shortly go up to 5235 thanks to funds allocated by the government of the 5235 beds 1200 are hybrid ones which could easily be converted to paediatric intensive care units picu with some minor tweaksextraordinary situations warrant extraordinary measures said a senior health and family welfare department officer at swasthya bhawan the government prioritised health and walked the extra mile to ensure funds and logistics never came in the way of providing health services to people afflicted with the virus when covid hit the city in marchapril 2020 there were just 328 covid beds in state governmentrun hospitals this has been upgraded to 36500 at that time there was hardly any piped supply of oxygen to normal hospital beds now over 26000 beds have piped oxygen supply this has proved very beneficial to nonicu patients said the officialthe pandemic required additional doctors and nursing staff to help tide over the healthcare crisis eight hundred medical officers and 1200 nursing staff were trained for systematic care of covid patients additionally 900 medical officers and 1600 nursing staff were trained for paediatric patients as the third wave was anticipated to hit the unvaccinated population especially children more than 10000 beds were made paediatricready