The Delhi Government has asked for immense support from the private hospitals in the city, as the number of Covid cases continues to rise to new highs.
The daily cases in Delhi have been above 10,000 since Sunday. On Tuesday evening, more than 13,000 cases were reported in Delhi for a single day. Prior to this new level of cases, Arvind Kejriwal’s Government ordered 14 private hospitals to turn into Full Covid-19 Hospitals on Monday and treat only Covid-19 patients, inorder to contain the situation. In spite of the additional bed-strength, apart from the Govt’s own hospitals, the beds are filling rapidly.
One of the 14 hospitals is the Holy Family Hospital at Okhla, New Delhi. Its Medical Superintendent and Critical Care Specialist Dr.Sumit Ray said to the NDTV on Wednesday that it is not an easy thing to treat only the Covid patients, and turn away other patients or pre-admitted patients.
“ It is a very difficult situation; we have to turn away lots of patients because we are full right now. We also have non-covid patients who have been here from before; who are also sick; and it is very difficult to move them out and send them to another hospital at this point of time.”
“But we are trying our best as much as we can to discharge some of them, send them to another hospital, but to convert to 100% (Covid Exclusive Hospital) within 24 hours notice is not possible because we cannot throw out patients”
He added that though their bed-strength is 345, 41 of them are neo-natal beds (beds and infrastructure meant for children) and cannot support adults. There are 304 beds available at the Holy Family Hospital and already 214 beds have been occupied.
The doctor said that the hospital is trying to increase its ICU bed capacity, this includes converting the semi ICUs to ICUs. “The need for beds is increasing for critically ill Covid patients”, he underlined. He also stated that the beds have been filling fast in the last 4 to 5 days.
The Delhi Govt has asked 19 private hospitals to reserve at least 80% of their ICU beds for Covid treatment, 82 private hospitals have been asked to reserve 60% of their ICU beds for Covid patients, and 101 private hospitals have been asked to reserve 60% of the ward beds for Covid-related treatment.