A sole private hospital in Uttar Pradesh's Amroha district is providing free treatment to COVID-19 patients. Venkateshwara Institute of Medical Science (VIMS), a multi-speciality hospital has treated 36 coronavirus infected patients successfully out of 52 admitted so far. The rest are undergoing treatment.

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"We have asked the government to send COVID-19 positive patients to us and we will take care of them. We do not charge anything from COVID-19 patients for the treatment. We give everything for free from food to medicine. There are no deaths reported due to COVID-19," Dr Sudhir Giri, Chairman, VIMS, told ANI.

"I think during the present crisis when all are fighting to keep this infection at bay, the country's private hospitals and medical institutions should come forward and offer free treatments. We all should help each other now, especially when the cases are escalating rapidly," said Dr Giri.

With 18 ventilators, the private hospital has 650 beds out of which 520 have been strictly assigned to COVID-19 patients. At present, the hospital has 40 COVID-19 patients. Amroha does not have a COVID-19 testing centre and hence, locals need to travel to Meerut to get their tests done. Dr Giri appealed to the Uttar Pradesh government to grant permission to the hospital for testing. According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Uttar Pradesh has 6,268 cases coronavirus cases including 161 deaths. India's COVID-19 count has crossed 1,38,845, including 4,021 deaths.