Apollo Hospitals Group launches Project Stay-I to provide isolation and quarantine facilities for suspected COVID-19 patients

To ensure affordable, safe rooms overnight and clean environments, Apollo Hospitals has joined forces with Hindustan Unilever, State Bank of India, Deutsche Bank, Oyo Rooms, Lemon Tree, Ginger hotels and Zomato to launch a social impact initiative on isolation care called “Project Stay I” (Stay Isolated). The Apollo Hospitals Group took forward its comprehensive response plan to COVID-19, Project Kavach, which was announced on March 26 2020.

Isolation is an important part of the break the chain of transmission strategy. Project Stay I is an innovative initiative to strengthen the bulwark against COVID-19 by creating isolation rooms in hotels with light medical supervision for quarantine and creating a barrier to ensure people recover without spreading the virus, and or be supervised so they can move to medical care at the right time.

These isolation rooms have been rolled out at Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Delhi, starting with approximately 500 in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, going up by 50 rooms every three days, to reach an eventual target of 5000 rooms across the country. The ramp up in the number of rooms will be calibrated as per the need. And cities will be added based on government requests, support of local healthcare providers and support for CSR.

Dr Sangita Reddy, Joint Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals Group said, “The steps taken by the Government of India in screening, testing and keeping high risk individuals in state quarantine facilities to prevent the extensive spread of the disease is indeed commendable. However, with increase in the scale and scope of testing, the number of positive cases are expected to increase. A significant number of these individuals will be positive but asymptomatic. There will also be a rise in the number of individuals requiring to be quarantined due to contact with COVID-19 patients. This will put a huge load on the government facilities for quarantine. This is the time for the private sector to step up to the challenge to aid, augment, and support our Government. Our attempt is just a small showcase model. Others can replicate. We are happy to share our technology backbone which is facilitating this model”.

She added, “Many families in India have 4-5 members and most of them share the same facilities and toilets, this fails the purpose of self-isolation if one the family members is at high risk of COVID-19. Especially since the virus is as asymptomatic for the first week.

Project Stay I will not only reduce the load on the healthcare system by creating clean, comfortable isolation and quarantine facilities for individuals who have no need for active medical intervention but also provide a solution to such families.