Ggm's hosp infra on the brink of collapse
Gurugram: It was widely anticipated that with a massive spike of COVID-19 cases in the National Capital Region, hospital beds in Gurugram would soon get filled up. These fears have now come true with not only all major private hospitals but even government hospitals running out of beds altogether, leaving patients and their kin to fend for themselves.
Most of the private hospitals are now bluntly refusing to admit patients citing that there is no bed availability despite pleas of several desperate kin highlighting worsening conditions of the Covid-19 patient.
Millennium Post contacted several hospitals like Columbia Asia, Fortis, Max, Medanta, Paras, Artemis, Signature, Medeor, W Prateeksha among others and all had the same response.
In all these hospitals, the receptionist either refused to offer beds citing no availability or simply did not pick up repeated calls. At 12:15 pm on Sunday, there were reports that SGT Hospital in Gurugram had availability of 100 oxygen beds but no ICU beds.
Even in Government Hospital at Sector-10, relatives of patients are queuing up in large numbers to get an oxygen bed, which is also unavailable.
There are 42 COVID-19 Hospitals in Gurugram, with over 2,000 beds comprising oxygen as well emergency facilities for Covid-19 patients.
A lack of coordination among the government agencies was once again evident with the actual situation on the ground not reflecting in the data provided by Gurugram public agencies of the number of beds available for COVID-19 patients.
With no solution in sight, most of the desperate kin either used social media to send out SOS messages and tips from good samaritans so that beds can be arranged for serious patients.
One of the patients whose father was in a serious condition due to Covid-19 had to wait for more than three hours at the reception of a private hospital following which he was able to admit his father at 12:00 am on Sunday.
However, some private hospitals are able to set up a makeshift ICU bed at the serious patient's home if there are no beds in the hospital.
And with active cases breaching the 12,000 mark on Sunday with another record surge of 2,401 new infections and two more deaths, systems to check the virus' spread by public authorities have started to crumble.
The helpline number (1950) that was earlier credited for solving all queries related to COVID-19 remained unanswered despite several calls by Millennium Post.
Most senior officials refused to answer questions about the district's preparedness to deal with this surge. The concerns of a shortage of oxygen cylinders and life-saving drugs such as Remdesivir have also now become evident. And as a result of low supply black marketing of essentials has also started with the Gurugram Police arresting three such people on Saturday.
