Bengaluru, Jul 12 (IANS): The city civic body has initiated the process to recruit 1,700 medical professionals, doctors, staff nurses and support staff to scale up its workforce to establish 30,000 Covid care beds, an official said on Sunday.

According to the official, to establish and run 30,000 Covid care beds, 1,800 doctors and 3,600 nurses are required.

The health department has calculated that one doctor per shift is needed for every 100 patients and one staff nurse for every 50 patients. Similarly, two supporting staff and three Group D employees are needed per shift for every 100 patients.

Generally, a day is divided into three shifts of eight hours each.

According to the director of medical education, there are 25,000 nursing students who have completed GNM and BSc Nursing courses and pursuing higher education.

Likewise, there are 3,231 medical, dental and aayush interns while MD and MS postgraduate students have been identified to be 1,613, in Bengaluru colleges.

"The department plans to actively utilize the services of interns and postgraduate students for the Covid Care Centre (CCC) operations," said the official.

Currently, 2,100 CCC beds are operational under the civic body in Bengaluru with a pool of 503 doctors, 167 aayush doctors, 128 nursing and paramedical staff.

Earlier in May, the civic body also notified to recruit 380 microbiologists, technicians and data entry operators for six months. In June, the civic body notified to recruit 637 doctors, nurses, technicians and group d employees to strengthen its fight against the pandemic.

Bengaluru is the ground zero of Covid infections in Karnataka, accounting for 61 per cent of all active cases in the state.

On Saturday, the city reported 1,533 new cases, taking its total tally to 16,862, of which 12,793 are active.

Karnataka recorded 2,798 more coronavirus cases and 70 more casualties on Saturday, raising the state's total cases to 36,216 and the death toll to 613.