City sees 3,259 new cases & 35 deaths in a day

New Delhi: Delhi recorded 35 COVID-19 fatalities on Saturday, taking the death toll due to the disease in the national capital to 5,981, while 3,259 fresh cases pushed the tally to over 3.27 lakh, authorities said.

The fresh cases came out of the 55,715 tests conducted the previous day.

On October 10 and September 29, 48 COVID-19 fatalities were reported in the city, the highest number of deaths recorded in a day since July 16, when the national capital saw 58 people succumbing to the disease.

Thirty-five more fatalities were recorded on Saturday, taking the death toll to 5,981, according to the latest bulletin issued by the Delhi health department.

The tally of active cases slightly rose to 22,884 on Saturday from 22,814 the previous day.

The number of cases has climbed to 3,27,818, the bulletin said.

Meanwhile, Resident doctors at Covid dedicated hospitals have written to the authorities to open services for non-covid patients as well.

The resident doctors of Maulana Azad Medical College have written to the medical director of the Lok Nayak Hospital claiming that restricting the facility to only treatment of patients infected with Covid-19 is seriously hindering the facility's medical students academic learning.

"We would like to bring to your notice that being associated with Maulana Azad Medical College, Lok Nayak Hospital is a pioneer teaching hospital and shares the responsibility of training more than thousands of undergraduate and postgraduate medical students every year. Restricting Lok Nayak Hospital to only Covid duty is seriously hindering training and education of these students. This in future will also lead to long-lasting damage to the society and public health," read the letter written by the RDA.

The RDA president of Maulana Azad Medical College Dr. Keshave Singh told Millennium Post that the hospital used to consult 9000 patients at OPD alone. "We are just asking the authorities to open half the services for non-covid patients. Meanwhile, medical students education is also getting hampered due to this," he added.

Lok Nayak hospital currently has 2,000 beds for Covid-19 patients. So far, the facility claims to have discharged almost 8,000 recovered patients, the highest number across any government hospital in the country.

GTB Hospital's resident doctors have also raised the issue. AIIMS RDA president Adarsh Pratap also

said that non-covid patients are suffering equally as covid patients.