Beds filling fast, govt moves to bring infra back to Nov levels
New Delhi: With Covid-19 cases surging dramatically in the Capital, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's government here on Monday ordered a massive ramping up of hospital beds for Coronavirus patients after he was informed in a crucial meeting that almost all large private hospitals had run out of Covid-19 beds, 85 per cent ICU beds in 57 of 115 private hospitals and 85 per cent of ward beds in 32 of these hospitals had been filled as of Monday.
"The CM was informed that the beds are rapidly getting occupied by covid positive patients with most patients coming from outside the city," a senior health official told Millennium Post.
Accordingly, the Delhi government's Directorate General of Health Services on Monday ordered 14 large private hospitals in the city to be made into exclusive facilities for COVID-19 cases. This list includes hospitals such as Indraprastha Apollo, Sir Ganga Ram, Fortis and Max hospitals in Shalimar Bagh, the Max facility in Saket and others. These hospitals have been directed not to take in any non-Covid-19 patient for either treatment or surgery.
In addition to this, the Delhi government has directed 19 private hospitals to reserve 80 per cent of the ICU beds for COVID-19 patients and 82 other private hospitals to increase their ICU bed reservation to 60 per cent. Moreover, the 101 other private hospitals in the city have been directed to reserve at least 60 per cent of their respective ward capacities exclusively for Covid-19 cases.
While the bed augmentation has been on overdrive for private hospitals, the Delhi government also increased bed capacity for Covid-19 patients in six of its hospitals to add 593 ward beds, ICU beds and ICU beds with ventilators for Covid-19 patients.
As active cases in the city inch back to the levels they were at during the last peak in November 2020, the Delhi government has said the objective is to up their health infrastructure back to the levels it was at during that time.
After coming out of the meeting, CM Kejriwal said that some hospitals in the city would need to be made dedicated Covid-19 facilities in light of the surge.
"Delhi's COVID situation is very serious, the fourth peak of the virus is more dangerous than ever. There should be no dearth in the number of beds available. Held review meeting. We are taking several steps to increase beds in both pvt and govt sectors. Urge everyone to cooperate. 1. Pl pl (please) follow covid protocols. 2. Don't rush to hospital unless necessary 3. Go and vaccinate if u r eligible," the CM tweeted.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Satyendar Jain said that the government had added 5,000 COVID beds in the last week and 50 per cent of the beds are vacant. He added that around 2 percent of beds in the Delhi government's COVID care centres are occupied and temporary care centres are being set up.
In fact, one such facility was set up on Monday, when a banquet hall opposite the LNJP hospital was converted back to Covid-19 facility.
"We have also requested the Centre to increase COVID beds in Central government hospitals. Currently, 1,090 COVID beds are available at Central Government hospitals, which was more than 4,000 in November 2020," he added.
