Kolkata: Despite repeated pleas by the state government to augment Covid infrastructure, some of the private hospitals in the city are showing an abject apathy towards the increase in the number of beds exclusively dedicated for the Covid patients. State government may take stern action if the private Health establishments do not increase Covid beds, sources in the Health department said.
At a time when the state government has stressed upon the expansion of existing infrastructure in various state-owned Covid hospitals and asked the other hospitals to set up separate isolation wards for Covid suspects, some of the private hospitals are allegedly flouting the government instruction. The Health department on previous few occasions asked some of the top private hospitals in the city to make additional arrangements of Covid beds and CCU beds as there has been a rise in infection over the past few days. But most of them have been showing a 'lackadaisical' attitude to bring in more beds into Covid management system. Almost all the CCU beds at private Covid hospitals have been filled up. Responding to the state government's call, many non-Covid private hospitals dedicated a separate unit for the Covid patients. But all the dedicated Covid beds in the non-Covid hospitals have been filled up. As a result there is going to be a huge pressure on the government owned COVID hospitals.
As the infection rate climbed up, the state government installed alternative infrastructure by increasing bed capacity of Covid hospitals across the state and announced more health installations for Covid treatment. In the words of a senior doctor from a government owned Covid hospital: "Many private hospitals are trying to keep themselves away from Covid treatment possibly because it would hamper their business in the future if Covid stigma is attached to them."
"Most of the beds in government run COVID hospitals are still vacant. There is nothing to panic. The occupancy in COVID beds is around 27 per cent in the state. But the private hospitals cannot shrug their responsibilities in the hours of crisis," a health official said.
It was learnt that the West Bengal Clinical Establishment Regulatory Commission (WBCERC) also urged various private hospitals to increase the Covid beds but no major development had taken place so far. According to sources the private hospitals have been asked to set up a "satellite facility centre" for keeping some suspected patients.
A private hospital near Swabhumi off EM Bypass has a total 700 beds but it has dedicated only 40 beds for COVID patients. A senior official of the hospital however claimed before that health officials that they would soon increase the COVID beds up to 50. Another private hospital at Mukundapur near EM Bypass was told to utilize its isolation center properly for the Covid management.
Incidentally, it may be mentioned here that there are 54 private COVID hospitals across the state and 26 government run Covid hospitals. Earmarked Covid beds are 10,840 in the state. City based private Covid hospitals like AMRI Salt Lake and Desun Hospital have no seats vacant while KPC Medical College has only 26 vacant out of total 200 beds. The CCU beds at all the three private hospitals have been filled up.