Hand-in-Hand
India’s Armed Forces have been working around-the-clock to provide medical and logistics support to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, the Armed Forces Medical Services (AFMS) deploying resources in aid of civilian authorities.
The Armed Forces have been running six quarantine facilities at Mumbai, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Hindon, Manesar and Chennai, with 15 other facilities kept as standby for use, as required. Dedicated COVID-19 facilities including High Dependency Units, Intensive Care Unit beds were prepared in 51 hospitals across the country, located at Kolkata, Visakhapatnam, Kochi, Dundigal (near Hyderabad), Bengaluru, Kanpur, Jaisalmer, Jorhat and Gorakhpur.
Five viral testing labs at Armed Forces hospitals for COVID-19 test have been made part of national grid, and include the Army Hospital (Research & Referral) at Delhi Cantt; Air Force Command Hospital at Bangalore and Armed Forces Medical College at Pune; Command Hospital (Central Command) at Lucknow and Command Hospital (Northern Command) at Udhampur plus six more hospitals.
The IAF’s transport fleet is being used to assist in transportation of essential supplies, medicines and medical equipment. In the first weeks, 200 tonnes of stores were airlifted to various parts of the country, with 28 fixed-wing and 21 helicopters deployed from various locations across the country.
The Indian Air Force have evacuated people and transported medical supplies, a C-17 Globemaster III with crew, medical team and support staff carrying 15 tonnes of medical supplies to China and airlifting back 125 persons, on return. A C-17 Globemaster III also flew to Iran to bring back 58 stranded Indians plus samples for investigation.
An IAF C-130J Super Hercules ferried some 6.2 tonnes of medicines to the Maldives while an Army Medical Corps team consisted of five doctors, two nursing officers and seven paramedics were deployed in the Maldives for capacity building measures and assist in setting up testing, treatment and quarantine facilities.
Six naval ships were on standby ready for assistance to neighbouring countries, with medical teams on standby for deployment to the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Afghanistan.