Gurugram reserves 75% of ICU beds for seriously ill Covid-19 patients

Earlier this week, Delhi government reserved 80% ICU beds for Covid-19 patients in 33 private hospitals in the city. With Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR) noticing a consistent upward trend in cases and a proportionate uptick in hospitalisation, Niti Aayog on Friday had directed the state officials to urgently increase bed capacity in the neighbouring states of the Capital.

At least 75% of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds in Gurugram hospitals have now been reserved for seriously ill Covid-19 patients, according to an order issued by the district administration on Monday. Additionally, 50% of the general beds across 42 private hospitals have also been reserved for moderately ill Covid-19 patients, as per the directives issued by the deputy commissioner Amit Khatri.

Amid the record surge in Covid-19 cases since the last week of October, hospital beds are fast being occupied by serious new infections. (Reuters file photo. Representative image)

Earlier this week, Delhi government reserved 80% ICU beds for Covid-19 patients in 33 private hospitals in the city. With Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR) noticing a consistent upward trend in cases and a proportionate uptick in hospitalisation, Niti Aayog on Friday had directed the state officials to urgently increase bed capacity in the neighbouring states of the Capital.

“Under the Epidemic Disease Act, 1897 and Disaster Management Act, 2005, public and private hospitals have been directed to ensure that 50% of the general beds and 75% of ICU/ventilator beds are reserved for Covid-19 cases,” stated Khatri in the order.

Till now, only 35% beds in hospitals were reserved for patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus. It included both general and ICU beds along with those with ventilator. The bed capacity earlier in September was increased from 25% to 35%.

Amid the record surge in Covid-19 cases since the last week of October, hospital beds are fast being occupied by serious new infections. Hospitalisation has consistently increased from 191 on November 2 to 293 on November 7 and further to 408 on November 13. On Monday, at least 417 infected patients from Gurugram were hospitalised. Additionally, 287 outstation patients from Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, parts of Haryana and other states are also undergoing treatment, as per the district hospitalisation data.

“There has been a 40% increase in the ICU beds with the spike in Covid-19 cases, which is leading to fast occupancy of beds in hospitals,” said Dr Virender Yadav, chief medical officer. “The decision to increase the number of beds for Covid-19 patients has been taken based on the directives issued by Niti Aayog on Friday to tackle surge of Covid-19 cases in Delhi-NCR in the last three weeks,” he said.

Data available on the government website showed that on Monday, 2,095 beds were reserved in 42 hospitals. It includes 312 ICU beds and 139 beds with ventilator support system. Of these 118 ICU beds and 63 ventilators are presently occupied. Also, out of 1,644 general beds, at least 994 are occupied.

Dr Rajesh Kumar, former head of community medicine department and school of public health , PGIMER- Chandigarh, said, “There is no specific treatment for Covid-19 except for the supportive care, which should be provided to serious patients immediately. With increased bed capacity, people will not be left without treatment and mortality would be controlled. Some people due to age, poor immunity and co-morbidity issue might succumb to the illness but citizens should not die due to lack of treatment facilities.”

On Monday, 546 new infections were confirmed from 2,524 samples collected on Sunday. Due to the festive weekend, overall testing recorded a dip from the daily average of 3,000 tests. But at least 3,501 samples were collected on Monday. Currently, cases are growing at a weekly test positivity rate of nearly 18%. The total tally of Covid-19 has reached to 39,933. Of these, 5,749 are active cases while 33,940 have recovered from the illness. The Covid-19 death toll also reached 244, with three new deaths being reported in the last 24 hours. Presently, 92% of the active cases are home isolated and seven percent of the patients are hospitalised. Yadav said that as part of the strategy, the next action would be to further increase testing to identify new infections.