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Pune residents decry shortage of beds, ICU and no contact tracing
Many councillors and public representatives have come across people from their wards or assemblies complaining about bed shortage.
Pune Even as the city is seeing an increased number of Covid-19 cases, residents are also facing shortage of beds. In some cases it was found that while patients and their relatives are searching for an isolation bed for over 24 hours, no one from the administration has contacted them for testing the family members. While the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) estimated about 46k cases by July-end and accordingly a shortage of over 330 ICU beds. However, cases of shortage of beds have already started rising and citizens are finding it difficult to get isolation beds, ICU beds or even proper guidance at some places.
Many councillors and representatives have come across people from their wards or assemblies complaining about bed shortage. BJP MLA Siddharth Shirole has been critical of the state government through his social media handles. The Shivajinagar MLA has launched a helpline number to coordinate between government agencies and direct people to the required facility. Shirole said, “It has been only close to two weeks since we started the helpline number and on an average we are receiving 30 to 40 calls with regards to non-availability of beds, ambulance, swab testing, and billing related issues. The utmost concern is unavailability of beds.”
He said, “We use the dashboard to facilitate beds to patients, but often the dashboard is not updated on a real-time basis and so when the patient arrives at the hospital, they are sent back stating no beds. The situation is worse in private hospitals. As people from all socio-economic strata are getting affected, most prefer private hospitals which is leading to this imbalance of civic-run facilities being vacant whereas private hospital are overflowing with patients.”
District collector Naval Kishore Ram on Wednesday instructed officials to increase contract tracing to contain the spread of the virus. The meeting was conducted for health officials from the three cantonment boards located in the district namely Pune, Khadki and Dehu road cantonment boards. “Covid care centres and institutional quarantines must be increased. Those quarantined must be stamped with the quarantined symbol,” he said.
Patient kept with non-Covid patients
A 76-year-old male, tested positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday morning. He was feeling breathlessness and weak. The patient and his grandson, who was accompanying him in an ambulance, had come from Paud road to Koregoan Park to another hospital which has earlier claimed of having beds, but by the time the family reached the hospital they said that there were no more beds available. With limited oxygen supply, the patient was taken to Sassoon hospital where he was admitted to the emergency ward.
The man said, “My grandfather also suffers from hypertension, diabetes and needs continuous oxygen supply. He has now been kept in an emergency ward with non-Covid patients. He keeps coming out of the ward taking off the oxygen mask. I had to get him from the ambulance, put him on stretcher and take him to the ward. We have demanded for an oxygen isolation bed in Covid-19 ward, but are yet to get it.”
Sassoon General Hospital dean Dr Murlidhar Tambe was unavailable for comment despite repeated attempts.
High-risk patient gets no bed for three days after testing positive
A 58-year-old woman suffering from hypertension, diabetes and kidney ailments and requiring dialysis could not find an isolation bed for three days even after testing positive. The woman, a resident of PCMC’s Thergaon, living with two sons who also tested positive for Covid, had to live in her house for three days till they got a bed. One of her sons who requested anonymity said, “My mother tested positive on Thursday and finally on Saturday we got a bed in civic-run YCM hospital. During this period we tried to get beds, but did not get any positive response. Mother requires dialysis and she used to visit the hospital for the same so it could be that she got infected from there. We did get calls from the state helpline numbers and we also used the dashboard but no help. She is still in the hospital and is stable. I and my brother have isolated ourselves at home while our mom is at the hospital. She requires ICU but there is a waiting list and she get oxygen facility now.”
Dr Rajendra Wable, dean of YCM hospital, said that the hospital has over 50 ventilators which are yet to be installed due to shortage of manpower and experts. “We did try to get paramedical staff including nurses from Kerala who offered to help but they wanted a non-Covid ward to work at. We have created a dedicated ward for patients who require ventilation wherein ICU ward like treatment in terms of medication and non-invasive ventilation is provided. We have about 3-4 patients who are currently awaiting a ventilator bed,” he said.
No contact tracing
A woman who lives in Shivajinagar tested positive and needed an isolation bed. However, despite contacting four hospitals including civic body’s Naidu hospital, they were refused any bed. The test result came on Tuesday at around 9 pm from a private laboratory and after finding no bed, they decided to take their sister to their two-room home shared by five people.
The patient’s sister said, “My sister works at a private eye clinic and started complaining about fever and itchiness in the throat a few days ago and we decided to test her. We searched for beds for hours and finally reached COEP college which is an isolation centre, but did not get any cooperation. In fact, they behaved rudely with us. After contacting local politicians and friends, we got a bed at Sinhgad isolation centre at Wadgaon where I also got tested since I was with her all along. During all this period we did not receive any call from PMC to test the rest of the family members which also includes our parents who are senior citizens.”
