Private hospitals to reserve 25% of bed capacity for Covid-19 cases

Gurugram has only two state-run hospitals, the 58-bed ESIC Hospital in Sector 9 and the 12-bed Sector 31 polyclinic, to handle Covid-19 patients.

The district administration, on Friday, directed the city’s private hospitals with a capacity of 50 beds or more to reserve 25% of their total bed strength for patients suffering from coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

Hospitals have also been ordered to ensure adequate availability of human resources and logistics, such as presence of drugs and critical care equipment. (Satish Bate/HT file photo. Representative image)

Amit Khatri, deputy commissioner, issued an order on Friday evening, stating that 36 private hospitals in the city, including two government hospitals, namely ESIC Hospital in Sector 9 and the Sector 31 polyclinic, will have to earmark beds for Covid-19 patients as the number of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus is likely to breach the 3,000-mark by Saturday.

Gurugram has only two state-run hospitals, the 58-bed ESIC Hospital in Sector 9 and the 12-bed Sector 31 polyclinic, to handle Covid-19 patients. A private facility, the 120-bed Medeor Hospital, has been designated as a Covid-19 hospital for treating critical cases. In the absence of adequate public health infrastructure, Covid-19 positive patients in Gurugram are undergoing treatment in private hospitals or are being home isolated.

As per the order, the listed private hospitals that are require to reserve beds for Covid-19 patients include Alfaa, Artemis, Bhanot, Chirag, Columbia Asia, ESIC (Sector 9), Fortis, Geetanjali (Pataudi), K K Healthcare, Max, Mayom, Medanta, Medeor, Metro hospital and heart institute, Narayana, Paras, Park, Polyclinic (sector 31), SGT (Chandu Budhera), Signature, W Pratiksha, Neelkanth, Aryan, Uma Sanjeevani Health Centre, Kalyani, Cloudnine, Kathuria, Kids clinic India Pvt Ltd, VK Healthcare and Medical Institute private limited, Polaris, Save Life, Northeast Healthcare Private Limited, The Asia Clinics and Surgery, Kamla, Shri Gobind and Pushpanjali.

Hospitals have also been ordered to ensure adequate availability of human resources and logistics, such as presence of drugs and critical care equipment. The decision has been taken in compliance with the directives issued by the state health department to ensure treatment facility at public and private hospitals for Covid-19 cases.

Earlier this month, when the cases were below the 700-mark, Khatri issued an order, making it mandatory for all the private and nursing homes in the city to admit Covid-19 patients, without giving an exact number of beds to be earmarked in hospitals.

Vivek Kalia, nodal officer for health facilities, said, “Facilities for Covid-19 patients have to be augmented as cases are climbing up. Out of the 822 Covid-19 beds in 38 hospitals, 465 beds are occupied by confirmed cases and 64 by suspected cases. At least 97 patients are in ICU while 31 patients, who are critical, are put on ventilator.”

Data further shows that Gurugram has overall 4,114 general beds, out of which 822 are Covid-19 dedicated. Likewise, there are 630 ICU beds, of which 162 are earmarked for coronavirus positive patients. There are atleast 330 ventilators and 141 dialysis machines across 36 hospitals.

The order states that all 36 hospitals will have to upload the details on an online portal called oneMap, wherein information regarding patients and the availability of beds will be daily updated. The data collation would help in establishing systemic surveillance at the district level, according to the order.

The administration has also earlier issued the standard operating procedures (SOPs) for the hospitals. The rules laid down in the draft SOP as reported by HT on Friday states that a hospital can refer a Covid-19 patient elsewhere only if it lacks enough beds.

The SOPs also allows private hospitals to transfer patients with mild or moderate symptoms to Covid care centres, which include self-paid and government-paid isolation facilities. The guidelines state that patients who do not require to be admitted in hospital because of their mild and moderate symptoms, but can’t be home-isolated either due to lack of space, will have to be transferred by the hospital to isolation centres.