Over 4,000 ward beds, 98 ICU beds free in Delhi for first time in four weeks

The Capital on Wednesday evening had over 4,000 ward beds and 98 intensive care unit (ICU) beds, earmarked for Covid-19 patients, vacant for the first time since the second week of April when coronavirus cases had started rising rapidly

The Capital on Wednesday evening had over 4,000 ward beds and 98 intensive care unit (ICU) beds, earmarked for Covid-19 patients, vacant for the first time since the second week of April when coronavirus cases had started rising rapidly. To be sure, the city has added over 7,000 beds for Covid-19 patients since then, of which nearly 2,000 were ICU beds, according to the data on the government’s Delhi Corona app.

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Of the total 23,345 hospital beds in Delhi, 4,682 were vacant as on Wednesday evening, putting the occupancy rate at 79.9%. Of the 5,911 ICU beds, 98 were vacant, putting the occupancy at 98.3%.

In comparison, on the evening of April 16, only 443 of the 3,989 ICU beds for Covid-19 patients were vacant, putting the vacancy at 87.9%.

About 10 days later, on April 26, the city had completely run out of ICU beds -- the app showed just 12 empty beds that day, and 11 of them were for pregnant women with Covid-19 and the other remaining bed, at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, was already taken.

Doctors see this as a sign of the Covid-19 situation gradually easing in Delhi. “The situation is definitely improving; now, there are oxygen beds available in the hospital and we do not have to refuse any patient. We have restarted all admissions. The ICUs are still full because patients, once admitted, need nearly three weeks to recover from Covid-19,” said a doctor from one of Delhi’s large private hospitals, asking not to be named.

On Wednesday, Delhi reported 13,287 new Covid-19 cases, up from Tuesday’s 12,481, according to the state health bulletin. But even that figure was far less than what was reported during the last two weeks of April, when an average of 23,000 new cases were reported daily.

Another doctor from the Delhi government-run Lok Nayak hospital, said on condition of anonymity, “The rush of patients in need of admissions has reduced over the past two or three days. Earlier, we were getting 150 to 170 patients each day; that has gone down to about 80 to 100 daily.”

This also means that the oxygen requirement of hospitals has also reduced. “Not only has the supply of oxygen been streamlined, the requirement itself has gone down,” said a doctor from Burari hospital, asking not to be named.

Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain in a press briefing on Tuesday said, “At the moment, there is no problem with beds in relation to oxygen. The demand for oxygen is decreasing now that the cases are going down, but we should keep getting the oxygen; otherwise there will be problems. We need 700MT of oxygen daily, and we are getting a little less than that (currently).”

There was acute pressure on Delhi hospitals between April 27 and May 3, according to a senior administrator from Delhi government-run Rajeev Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital. “There are fewer people coming to the hospital now that cases have gone down and beds are available. The situation was critical between April 27 and May 3,” the administrator said, adding that the extensions set up by the government also helped ease the burden on the hospital.

At its peak, the hospitalisations in Delhi had touched 22,000 at any given point during the current wave of the pandemic, according to Jain. “The demand for beds is still there, there are still 20,000 people admitted to hospitals. But the maximum occupancy during the previous wave was 9,500 ( in November), while during the current one, it is around 22,000. That is a huge number,” the minister said.