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50 year old woman dies as minister inspects L3 Covid hospital in Ghaziabad
Uttar Pradesh minister finance and medical education Suresh Khanna on Tuesday afternoon inspected a tertiary care facility dedicated to treat Covid-19 patients in
Uttar Pradesh minister finance and medical education Suresh Khanna on Tuesday afternoon inspected a tertiary care facility dedicated to treat Covid-19 patients in Ghaziabad.
The hospital, the only facility in the district that serves patients who are critical, was opened after the district administration acquired the Santosh Medical College near the Old Bust Stand. It had recently suffered the deaths of two patients due to Covid-19.
The death was the fifth in Ghaziabad where it was attributed to comorbid conditions.
“The recent death in the hospital was that of a 50-year-old woman. She died due to comorbid conditions. Later, the minister arrived for inspection and also spoke to with several patients,” said Dr. NK Gupta, chief medical officer (CMO).
“We are trying to ensure that emergency services are operational whether it is related heart patients or cases of trauma, gynaecology, kidney or even cancer. We must protect patients from corona while other patients should not be neglected. This is why I have visited,” Khanna told reporters. “Ghaziabad also has a good recovery rate while UP has about 60% of the recovery rate. The state government is taking up all effort to tackle spread of the coronavirus. I spoke to seven corona patients at the hospital. It also included a doctor at the airport and he told that he probably contracted infection at airport and could not maintain social distancing.”
The move to start emergency services had several health department officials in the district in a fix. “The hospital is meant exclusively for critical Covid-19 patients and any opening of emergency services for non-Covid patients may pose potential risk,” said one official.
CMO Gupta and distric magistrate Ajay Shankar Pandey offered no any comment over the issue.
“We have non-Covid emergency services at MMG Hospital and Women Hospital while the L-2 (secondary care where moderate cases are treated)category Covid hospital is kept separate and not allowed to operated emergency services due to risk of spread of infection,” CMO said.
The tally of Covid-19 cases on Tuesday in Ghaziabad stood at 344 as 13 more cases were added to Monday’s tally of 331. Health officials added that 237 persons have been discharged so far while the number of active cases stood at 102.
“The tally of deaths has now reached five which includes death of the 50 year old woman on Tuesday. She is from Jhandapur and had history of diabetes and hypertension. The 13 cases which have come on Tuesday include three from Vasundhra besides others from localities including Vaishali,” CMO added.
The other cases include one case each from Surya Nagar, Indirapuram, Crossings Republik, Chander Nagar, Maharajpur, Shalimar Garden, Vijay Nagar, Khoda and Jhandapur.
In the meantime Amit Mohan Prasad, UP’s principal secretary (health), said that as per directions of the Indian Council for Medical Research the state has also started with sero-surveillance activities.
“Such surveillance activities are taken up in form where Elisa test which is done through blood samples in order to find out infection. The blood samples have been taken up in 10 districts and we are awaiting results. This will help is strengthen containment activities,” Prasad said. “We have already procured 41 tru-net machines which were brought in by state plane and 34 more will arrive in next 2-3 days. We already have 20 of these. These machines will be given to each of the 75 districts and will considerably boost testing of Covid-19 samples and ensure faster results.”
