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As Covid-19 cases rise, Ghaziabad faces shortage of beds at L1 hospital
Ghaziabad:
Ghaziabad:
With rising number of Covid-19 cases in Ghaziabad, the district is facing a shortage of L1 category operational beds. As a result, the health department is forced to admit the L1 category patients to its L2 Covid hospital at Sanjay Nagar.
In Ghaziabad, ESIC Hospital in Sahibabad is an L1 category facility where all the 76 beds are fully occupied, while the district hospital at Sanjay Nagar is a L2 category hospital with 100 beds. Another L1 category hospital at Muradnagar has 30 beds, but the facility is currently not operational, health officials said.
The Uttar Pradesh government has created a dedicated chain of Covid-19 hospitals in the state — L1, L2 and L3. The L1 category of hospitals deals with uncomplicated cases of Covid-19 and each district has at least one such hospital, while the cases that require more attention are sent to L2 category hospitals and critical patients are sent to L3 category hospitals for specialised treatment.
“Of 100 beds in our hospital, 49 are occupied at present. But about 40 of these patients are L1 category ones, as all beds at L1 category ESIC Hospital are occupied. The other 30-bed L1 hospital at Muradnagar was also closed down. I have written to senior health department officials in Lucknow about this issue,” said Dr Naresh Vij, chief medical superintendent of Sanjay Nagar hospital.
On Sunday, Ghaziabad reported 32 new Covid-19 cases, taking the district’s tally to 474, while the active cases stood at 158. The health department officials expect that with markets, malls and other public places getting opened up, there will be a rise in number of Covid-19 cases. There has been a surge in positive cases in June. As per records, 169 cases have been added during the period from June 1 to June 7.
Vij said that they are facing issues due to the admission of L1 patients. “The L2 patients are generally bed ridden and put on drip or need oxygen support. On the other hand, the L1 patients are generally asymptomatic and they have tendency to move around in the ward. So, we need to make extra efforts to control them. Further, if our beds get filled up, there is no other L2 hospital in Ghaziabad,” Vij added.
Notably, the 30-bed L1 category facility at CHC Murdnagar was the first Covid-dedicated hospital in Ghaziabad. The health department closed it down after it remained operational for over a month. Now, the ESIC Hospital in Sahibabad has taken up the workload of admitting L1 patients.
“Since L1 category ESIC Hospital is fully saturated, we have shifted L1 patients to the Sanjay Nagar hospital. Our main focus now is to create L1 hospitals,” said Dr NK Gupta, chief medical officer.
He said that the L1 hospital at Murdnagar was shut down as the same staff which looked after 30 beds will now be roped in for the proposed 200-bed L1 facility at Niwari.
“We have now planned to soon open up 60-bed Mariam Hospital in Nandgram and 200-bed Divyajyoti College at Niwari as our new L1 hospitals. We are making arrangements. The L1 category facilities are being developed as the number of cases is rising, and only about 10% patients need treatment at L2 or L3 hospitals. Unlike other states where home quarantine for asymptomatic patients is prevalent, we have no such arrangement. Further, it also becomes difficult to monitor movement of home quarantined patients,” Gupta said.
Recently, the district came up with an L3 facility at Santosh Medical College.
“At present, we have only one L3 hospital at Santosh Medical College which has 400 beds. We have 18 patients admitted there. The ventilator support is only available on 16 beds, while rest of the beds are equipped with oxygen support. In a way, the beds having only oxygen support can be considered as L2 beds,” the CMO said.
He also said that there is a proposal for converting quarantine centres to ‘L1 attached’ hospitals where purely asymptomatic patients will be kept.
“Once they come up, we will transfer positive patients having very mild symptoms to L1 hospitals while asymptomatic patients will be kept at L1 attached hospitals. So, under this procedure we have planned to tackle rising number of cases,” Gupta said.
In Ghaziabad, the first Covid-19 case was reported on March 5, and the figure slowly reached 50 cases on April 22 after about 48 days. The next 50 cases were reported by May 5 in a span of about 13 days. The next 50 cases (total case count 150) happened in another 10 days on May 15 while the district crossed the 200 mark on May 21 in another six days. However, the next 100 cases arrived in just 10 days with the district crossing the 300 mark on May 31. The next 100 cases have arrived in a span of just six days and the total on June 6 stood at 442.
According to health officials, the 32 Covid-19 cases reported on Sunday include one each from Loni, Khoda and Indirapuram, five from Vasundhara, two from Surya Nagar and two staff of MMG Hospital. The district has witnessed nine deaths due to coronavirus disease.
“The 28 patients out of 32 are already in quarantine facility and they will be shifted to dedicated Covid hospital,” said Gupta, the CMO.
