Govt orders additional 4,857 beds in hospitals as cases surge

With an eye on the surge in Covid-19 cases in the city, the Delhi government on Monday ordered 11 of its hospitals to add 1,540 beds and 54 private ones to add 3,317 beds for these patients

With an eye on the surge in Covid-19 cases in the city, the Delhi government on Monday ordered 11 of its hospitals to add 1,540 beds and 54 private ones to add 3,317 beds for these patients. Just over 1,000 of these would be for intensive care, according to the government.

During a check, HT found that the occupancy of beds was high at some big private hospitals – 82.4% at Indraprastha Apollo, 88.1% at Sir Ganga Ram hospital, and 70.6% at Max hospital-Saket. (REUTERS file photo)

This was the second time in a week that the government moved to increase the number of beds in major private hospitals. HT reviewed occupancy rate at private hospitals to find that several had already reached close to 80%.

On March 31, 33 major hospitals had been told to add 1,080 beds for Covid patients as the city witnessed a sudden jump in the number of new Covid-19 cases, almost doubling between March 31 and April 3. These hospitals were covered once again in Monday’s order from Dr RN Das, medical superintendent of Delhi’s Nursing Home Cell.

“The positivity rate and number of active cases in Delhi was 2.71% and 8,838 respectively on March 31. The same has increased to 4.67% and 13,982, respectively by April 4,” read the order. Monday’s numbers, 3,548 fresh cases on the back of 64,003 tests, pushed the positivity rate up to 5.54%, the first time it breached 5% since December 3.

“In order to augment the bed capacity for Covid-19 patients and at the same time to also ensure that treatment of non-Covid critical patients is not compromised, 54 large private hospitals having bed strength of 100 beds or more are directed to reserve at least 30% of their ICU bed capacity or double the occupancy as on April 5, whichever is higher and 30% of their ward bed capacity or double the occupancy as on April 5, whichever is higher for Covid related treatment,” the order further read.

The order translates to an additional 4,857 beds.

“Every day we are opening up additional beds for Covid-19. Last year, all non-emergency surgeries had been halted and patients were anyway not coming to hospitals because of the Covid-19 scare. Now, non-Covid services are running at about 70 to 80% of what it did before Covid-19,” said Dr Suranjit Chatterjee, senior consultant for internal medicine at Indraprastha Apollo.

Dr Rommel Tickoo, director of internal medicine, at Max Healthcare said, “The cases are rising exponentially. The pace at which the number of cases has gone up this time around did not give us time to ramp up capacity. The situation is heading towards what it was during November.”

During a check, HT found that the occupancy of beds was high at some big private hospitals – 82.4% at Indraprastha Apollo, 88.1% at Sir Ganga Ram hospital, and 70.6% at Max hospital-Saket.

Among the government hospital, Lok Nayak was directed to increase the number of Covid-19 beds from 300 to 1,000, with the number of ICU beds increasing from 50 to 200. Lok Nayak was the first Delhi government-run centre to be designated as a Covid-19 centre in March last year, after which all 2,000 of its beds were earmarked for only the treatment of the viral infection.

“We have received the order to increase the number of beds. We will just have to move some patients around but we have the requisite number of beds available at the moment. We have a capacity of 2,000 beds and there are only 700 non-Covid patients admitted at the moment. The medicine and casualty blocks will be reserved for Covid-19 patients,” said a senior administrator from Lok Nayak hospital.

Guru Teg Bahadur hospital, where none of the beds were earmarked for the infection, has now been asked to reserve 500 Covid beds, with 100 of them being in the ICU.