Ghaziabad’s patient discharge rate slips to 40%, worst in Uttar Pradesh

Ghaziabad has earned the dubious record of having the highest number of active Covid-19 cases among all the 75 districts of Uttar Pradesh — as per as per state control

Ghaziabad has earned the dubious record of having the highest number of active Covid-19 cases among all the 75 districts of Uttar Pradesh — as per as per state control room figures (from June 30 till July 7)— with health officials worried that either patients were not getting discharged or their entries were not being updated on the portal.

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Ghaziabad breached the 2,000 mark of Covid-19 cases on July 4 and has been the top district in UP in terms of active cases since June 30. On June 30, the district had 822 active cases, which rose to 1,390 on July 7. The number of patients discharged as on June 30 stood at 738, while the figure for July 7 was 977. This means that only 239 patients were discharged in the district since July 1.

On Wednesday, the total number of Covid-19 cases in Ghaziabad stood at 2612 with number of active cases going up to 1477 and number of total patients discharged stood at 1072 besides 63 deaths. Since June 30, the Ghaziabad district has been featuring on top of all 75 districts in UP having highest number, more than one thousand, of active cases.

“The fewer number of patients getting discharged is a cause of concern. We think this is happening either because the patients are not getting discharged on time as per the latest guidelines or they have been discharged but the same information has not been uploaded to the state portal,” said Dr NK Gupta, chief medical officer of the district.

“We think that entires of about 300 patients will to be updated in the next few days and this will bring down our number of active cases,” he added.

The discharge rate of patients in Ghaziabad district had been on the higher side ever since the Covid-19 outbreak. On April 30, the discharge rate was 66.66% out of total 66 cases. It jumped to 76.39% (out of total of 305 cases) till May 31. However, it started seeing a downward slip after that. The discharge rate, as per the state health bulletin, was quoted at 45.69% till June 30 out of a total of 1,615 cases.

It has slipped further since and till July 7, the overall discharge rate was 40.2% out of a total of 2430 cases.

The officials said that they suspected the government’s L1 category facilities were the main culprits in not uploading details.

“We have now changed the staff deployed at our L1 hospital at Niwari, which was opened last week. The physical verification from patient’s register is being taken up by other staff. Each hospital has been given a login ID and password and they are supposed to make entires on state portal. The same has been issued to private hospitals but we expect that they have much more efficient staff and make proper entries,” Dr Gupta added.

Ghaziabad district at present has seven private paid Covid-19 facilities for treatment of patients while the government is operating three L1 category hospitals at ESCI Sahibabad, Divyajyoti Hospital at Niwari and SRM Campus at Modinagar. The district also has an L2 hospital at Sanjay Nagar and L3 hospital at Santosh Medical.

As per the new discharge guidelines issued on June 19, if any asymptomatic patient shows no symptoms, he/she can be discharged without undergoing any test on the tenth day from their date of admission. But, such patients will have to remain in home quarantine for seven days after discharge from hospital.

According to officials, the recovery rate of L1 category patients ranges from 8-16 days while the L2 and L3 patients, who have moderate to critical conditions, need full recovery before they can be discharged.

The officials also added that with increased sampling and testing through various means like RT-PCR, rapid antigen kits and TrueNat machines, the district had been witnessing an increase in the overall number of Covid-19 cases.

UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath on July 16 had approved a special RT-PCR laboratory for Ghaziabad district for conduct of testing in view of the rising number of cases in the district.

HT on July 18 had reported about the approval given by the CM.

“We expect the laboratory to be functional in another month. The old women’s hospital building at the premises of MMG Hospital will be modified for installation of the new RT-PCR laboratory. Two doctors are undergoing training at present and new staff — including nine lab technicians — will also be provided for the operation of the new laboratory,” said Dr Anurag Bhargava, the chief medical superintendent of MMG Hospital.

“Once the lab gets is inaugurated, we will be able to conduct about 100 tests per day and will slowly scale up testing, depending on requirement,” he added.