Nagpur: With the resurgence in daily Covid cases, the admissions in private Dedicated Covid Hospitals (DCHs) have suddenly shot up.
On Saturday, the beds were full at DCHs of two big private hospitals while others too have started receiving a steady flow of mild, moderate, and severe symptomatic patients. As cases had remained low in last two months, many DCHs had scaled down Covid beds as rush of non-Covid patients began to increase. The rising Covid admissions have put private hospitals in a spot, with both type of patients increasing at the same time.
The admissions at GMCH, IGGMCH, AIIMS, IGR too have gone up this week. A lot of beds, though, are still vacant in government and civic-run hospitals. As on Sunday, of the over 1,000 admitted patients, 524 were in private hospitals. This clearly indicates those requiring admission belong to financially well off background. The total admissions in the district stood at 822 as on February 14. There are 65 private DCHs in the district.
A week ago, most of these private hospital didn’t have a single Covid patients while others had less than 25% occupancy of their total Covid capacity.
Dr Harshvardhan Bora, internal medicine and critical care specialist at Kingsway Hospitals, said they are maintaining a wait-list of patients now. “Around two weeks back, we had 30 admissions. This has increased by more than double to 80. Probably, it is the second wave. We had scaled down some beds as other patients increased,” he said.
OCHRI director Dr Anup Marar said the doubling of admission rate is worrisome. “In case this trend continues, I fear the situation may go out of control like the first Covid wave in August-September,” he said.
Dr Marar, who is also Vidarbha Hospitals Association (VHA) convener, said admissions are increasing in the same pattern at other private DCHs in the district. “Around a fortnight ago, they were demanding to be removed as Covid hospitals because of increasing load of other patients. Many were also forced to utilize vacant beds for regular patients. Now, the increasing load of Covid will make matters worse. The big challenge we all face now is where are we going to shift non-Covid patients,” he said.
Dr Marar added that the Covid patients are in genuine need of admission and they too can’t be refused a bed or forced to get home-based care. “Patients are reporting between 7 to 15 days of infection, which is a critical phase,” he said.
FACTS & FIGURES
Date —Admissions—Pvt
Feb 21 —986—566
Feb 20 —725—584
Feb 19 —984—584
Feb 18 —968—568
Feb 17 —953—607
Feb 16 —838 —492
Feb 15 —822—476
(Data as per civil surgeon’s press note. Admissions in some private and govt hospitals not updated)
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