200 beds to be added within three days, 800 more in the works

Amid the increasing demand for Covid-19 beds and ventilator support for seriously ill patients, senior Gurugram officials decided to add 1,000 more beds across the city’s hospitals, 200 of which, including 20 ventilator beds, will be set up within three days, according to a release issued by the district administration following a review of the situation in the city on Saturday

Amid the increasing demand for Covid-19 beds and ventilator support for seriously ill patients, senior Gurugram officials decided to add 1,000 more beds across the city’s hospitals, 200 of which, including 20 ventilator beds, will be set up within three days, according to a release issued by the district administration following a review of the situation in the city on Saturday.

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Officials familiar with the developments said that 100 beds have been added at SGT Hospital, 50 at Civil Hospital, 50 beds; 25 each at Pataudi and Sohna Civil Hospitals, and 14 beds at the ESI Hospital.

“It was decided in the meeting today (on Saturday) that hospital beds would be increased by 1,000,” said Dr Virendra Yadav, chief medical officer.

He said that the 1,000 beds may be set up at makeshift facilities at community centres, banquet halls and other such places.

On Saturday, senior officials of MCG, district administration, Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) and health department, held a virtual meeting chaired by TC Gupta, additional chief secretary to Haryana government, and the Covid-19 officer for Gurugram.

Vinay Pratap Singh, commissioner, Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG), said, “Besides work on adding 200 beds, we have added around 100 Covid-19 beds in SGT medical recently. We will be adding another 20 oxygen and five more ventilator beds in the city. Further, efforts are also being made to increase the number of beds with oxygen facility in Gurugram through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in collaboration with various corporate companies. For this, seven community centres have been identified.”

Last Monday, Gupta had said that the government will be adding 800 more Covid-19 beds in the city.

Availability of beds for Covid-19 patients has been extremely low over the last week. On Friday night, there were no oxygen, ICU or ventilator beds available in Gurugram in any of its 41 Covid-19 hospitals, as per the Gurugram Covid Combat Companion (GC3), a real-time portal managed by the district administration.

During the meeting, deputy commissioner Dr Yash Garg also suggested that by taking over ESI Hospital in Manesar, including the community hall adjoining it, around 150 additional beds can be added.

Garg also said that the administration has discussed building hospitals for Covid-19 patients with a few big companies and NGOs of Gurugram.

Sudhir Rajpal, chief executive officer (CEO), GMDA, who is also in charge of managing beds for Covid-19 patients in Gurugram, said that better management and data analysis of available bed numbers is needed and the existing infrastructure will be increased, as per the requirement.

Oxygen supply

During the meeting, Gupta reiterated that there was no shortage of oxygen in Haryana and it only needed to be managed on the ground. He said that earlier, Gurugram was getting 20 to 22 metric tonnes (MT) of liquid medical oxygen, which was sufficient and with an increase in the requirement, 31 MT of liquid oxygen were supplied on Friday.

The administration said that during Saturday’s review, there was a talk of increasing the supply of oxygen, to 35 MT. Apart from this, 10 tonnes of liquid oxygen will be kept at the disposal of the district administration for emergency purposes.

Gupta said that the oxygen plan of the district has been prepared by taking the data of consumption and supply of oxygen in hospitals in the district. Gurugram district will get the supply from Bhiwadi in Rajasthan and Panipat.

He said that there is no need for panic about the oxygen supply, as companies have also been asked to help out in case of a crisis.

Beds reservation

During the meeting, the administration apprised Gupta that 60% of all hospital beds have been reserved for Covid-19 patients, with 75% reservation of ICU and ventilator beds, leading to an additional 1,000 beds, following which Gupta directed all executive magistrates and nodal officers deputed at each Covid-19 hospital to strictly enforce the reservations.

Requests from patients

The district administration received 525 applications on the covidggn.com portal since the option was introduced last week, of which 80 patients were deemed to be eligible for admission by a team of doctors.

Additional deputy commissioner Prashant Pawar said that such patients were admitted on a “first come first served” basis.

He said that those applying on the portal need are allowed to choose three hospitals and if beds are not available in any of these, patients would be informed of availability in other hospitals and given the option of being admitted there.