The district health department on Saturday said Covid-19 positive women or women suspected to be infected with the virus will now be taken only to Sanjay Nagar Combined District Hospital, a dedicated Covid-19 hospital, for deliveries. Earlier, all pregnant women were taken to New District Women Hospital at Gaushala Road for deliveries.
“From now on, the deliveries of any Covid-19 positive patient or women suspected of being infected with the virus will be taken up at a dedicated Covid hospital which is an L2 category hospital in Ghaziabad. Such cases will not be referred to the Women Hospital. We have also directed the 102/108 ambulance service officials to take such women to the Sanjay Nagar hospital and not the Women Hospital,” said Dr NK Gupta, chief medical officer (CMO), Ghaziabad.
The state family welfare department on April 13 had rolled out directions stating that such women patients must be taken to L1/L2 category hospitals and three of four ambulances should be regularly disinfected and deputed for ferrying such patients. The directions also stated that newborn babies of positive or suspected cases should be treated at Sick Newborn Care Unit (SNCU) at Covid hospitals and not at regular SNCUs.
Under the three-layered Covid healthcare facilities, the Uttar Pradesh government has divided Covid hospitals into three categories: L1, L2, and L3. The L1 hospitals are for positive cases with no health issues, while L2 hospitals deal with positive patients who have health complications. The L3 hospitals attend to critical positive patients.
{{/usCountry}}Under the three-layered Covid healthcare facilities, the Uttar Pradesh government has divided Covid hospitals into three categories: L1, L2, and L3. The L1 hospitals are for positive cases with no health issues, while L2 hospitals deal with positive patients who have health complications. The L3 hospitals attend to critical positive patients.
{{/usCountry}}The 100-bedded Sanjay Nagar Combined District Hospital is an L2 category Covid hospital. Health officials clarified that pregnant women from hot spot areas will be taken to the Women Hospital for delivery.
“The women who arrive from hot spot areas cannot be termed as suspected cases, so they will be treated at Women’s Hospital. If such women patients come to dedicated Covid hospitals, they and their newborns are at risk of getting infected with the coronavirus disease,” Dr Gupta added.
Meanwhile, the officials at Women’ Hospital said there has been a sharp decline in the number of deliveries at the facility in the past few weeks amid the lockdown.
“At an average, 18 deliveries would take place at the hospital everyday, and now amid the lockdown, the figure has come down to an average of about 12 deliveries per day. The catchment area of our hospital is about 10km in different localities which include many areas where migrant workers live. We can attribute the decline in the number of deliveries to the recent exodus of migrant labourers who returned to their home towns,” said Dr Deepa Tyagi, chief medical superintendent of the hospital. She said a major chunk of women patients come from areas like Khoda, Kaila Bhatta and Old Ghaziabad City.
After the countrywide lockdown was announced, thousands of workers in Delhi-NCR had left for their home towns. Hundreds of buses were deployed by the UP State Road Transport Corporation, with help from Haryana Roadways, workers were ferried to their respective home towns in Uttar Pradesh on March 28 and 29.
The Women Hospital is a 100-bedded facility inside the MMG Hospital complex and has a staff of about 150 doctors, nurses and other health care workers.
“We are taking every precaution at the hospital, and recording an extensive history of patients and checking them for any coronavirus related symptoms. We also got all our staff, including 42 doctors and nurses working at the front-line, tested nobody has been detected with Covid-19 so far,” Dr Tyagi added.