Srinagar, June 9 : The Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Manoj Sinha, on Wednesday inaugurated a 500-bed Covid hospital set up by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) at Khonmoh in Srinagar. After constructing a 500-bed Covid hospital in Jammu, the DRDO completed the 500-bed hospital in Srinagar in just 17 days. Housing all the requisite modern facilities, the centrally air-conditioned facility has the capacity for 125 ICU beds, out of which 25 are reserved for children, and 375 beds with 24-hour oxygen connectivity. A 10-bed Triage area has also been built in the hospital premises. The Covid care facility will fully start its operations once the trial run of all the medicare facilities is completed. Sinha noted that it was only due to the personal intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that J&K has witnessed such large scale capacity enhancement of medical infrastructure. Recently, the UT received 16 medical oxygen generation plants from Europe in a short span of three weeks, substantially enhancing the medical oxygen availability in the region. The Lt Governor also lauded the DRDO for playing a key role in India's fight against Covid-19. "I acknowledge the hard work of DRDO officials, who have completed both the hospitals in a short span of time, adding 1,000 additional beds to serve the people of Jammu and Kashmir," he said. Speaking about the UT government's initiatives to transform J&K's health system in view the pandemic, Sinha said that the strategy has been to implement a host of interventions in response to the evolving situations and then quantifying the impact of those initiatives in providing relief to the patients and strengthening the overall healthcare delivery system. Some notable interventions include continuous augmentation of ICU and oxygen supported beds, deployment of former medical staff and fast-track deployment of newly qualified staff, decentralisation of health system through the Panchayat Covid Care Centres and starting an accelerated vaccination drive, he noted. /IANS