Hospitalisations drop, over 700 ICU beds in Delhi vacant: Govt’s Corona app

The ICU beds reserved for Covid-19 patients went up from just over 3,000 on April 12 to 6,376 as of Monday evening. There were 5,150 ICU beds on May 3, when the highest number of hospitalisations were reported

Over 700 or 11.5% of intensive care unit (ICU) beds reserved for Covid-19 patients in the national Capital were vacant as of Monday evening, according to the government’s Delhi Corona app. This is the highest vacancy in the city since the second week of April when the infections were surging, and largely because of the creation of additional beds. Hospitals are still reporting full ICUs as Delhi reported over 20,000 cases daily for 16 consecutive days during the current surge in infections in April.

A ward at the Covid-19 ICU annexe of the LNJP Hospital set up at the Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi, on May 14. (Bloomberg)

The number of hospitalisations in the city reduced to 15,500 on Monday as per the government’s daily health bulletin.

“With fewer new cases being reported now, overall, the situation in hospitals has improved. The wards, oxygen beds, and emergency department are freeing up. However, the ICUs continue to be full. And this is because the duration of hospital stays for those who enter the ICU once is about three weeks. The ICU occupancy is likely to start going down in another 10 days or so,” said Dr Sumit Ray, medical superintendent, Holy Family Hospital. He added the higher mortality during the second wave was mainly because hospitals were overwhelmed.

The ICU beds reserved for Covid-19 patients went up from just over 3,000 on April 12 to 6,376 as of Monday evening. There were 5,150 ICU beds on May 3, when the highest number of hospitalisations were reported.

There has been an increase in the CU beds in Delhi government-run hospitals such as Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) Hospital and Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital, where the number of beds had to be reduced at the peak of the wave because of the shortage of oxygen. GTB Hospital increased its beds from 750 on May 12 to 1,150 on Monday evening. They include 800 ICU beds. The Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital had 350 beds in the May first week. The number went up to 475, including 325 ICU beds, on Monday. Beds have also been added to the extensions of Lok Nayak Hospital and GTB Hospital.

Several private hospitals have also increased the number of ICU beds. The government has also added 250 oxygen beds to its Indira Gandhi Hospital in Dwarka.

Dr SCL Gupta, medical superintendent, Batra Hospital, said for the last four to five days, the occupancy at the hospital has gone down by around 20%. “However, the ICU situation is still bad; most of the patients continue to need extensive care.”

A doctor at the Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital said they only have the most critical patients admitted to the hospital ICU. “...most of the others have been discharged.”

The number of beds for Covid-19 patients has also increased from just over 21,000 at the beginning of the month to 27,610 on Monday evening. The additional beds are mostly in Covid Care Centres that can manage mild to moderate cases.