Ghaziabad: Private hospitals report increase in bed occupancy ahead of festive season

Ghaziabad: Amid a surge in Covid-19 cases ahead of festive season, private hospitals in Ghaziabad are witnessing an increase in admissions, with some medical facilities

Ghaziabad: Amid a surge in Covid-19 cases ahead of festive season, private hospitals in Ghaziabad are witnessing an increase in admissions, with some medical facilities saying that Covid-19 patients are also coming from Delhi. The Ghaziabad district at present has 13 private hospitals which have a total of 900 Covid beds.

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Of the 900 Covid beds, 142 are ICU beds, 49 with ventilator facility and 14 having facility of high flow nasal cannula, as per data from the district health department.

Some of the private hospitals HT spoke to said that they have witnessed a spike in bed occupancy since last week. Notably, Delhi has been witnessing a spike in positive cases for the past more than one week, and recording over 6,000 cases since November 3.

“Our occupancy till last week was about 65-70% and it has now gone up to about 90%. We are now getting patients from Delhi, Noida, Meerut and Bulandshahr. It is also expected that spike in Delhi and upcoming festival season will surely lead to increase in number of cases,” said Dr Sangeeta Garg, chief medical superintendent of Yashoda Super Speciality Hospital at Nehru Nagar.

On Sunday, Ghaziabad reported 223 new Covid-19 cases, taking the total number of positive cases in the district to 19,769. There has been an increase in Covid-19 cases in Ghaziabad since October 29 when the active cases were 829. However, the active cases have risen since and the state control report of November 8 indicated the total active cases in the district at 1,357.

According to district health department officials, there were 800 beds in 12 private hospitals which had occupancy of 355 (about 44.37%) on October 31. One more private hospital, having 100 beds, was added for Covid treatment in the current month, the officials said, adding that the effective occupancy on November 7 was 490 of 800 (61.25%) beds in 12 private hospitals with no patient admitted to the newly added hospital.

Dr Mahesh Chaudhary, director (operations), Navin Hospital at Vaishali, said, “We have almost full occupancy of Covid beds in our hospital. We have witnessed an increase in occupancy since last week. It is very likely that Covid patients will increase in winter season. We have also opened a new branch recently, will now be shifting additional patients to our new branch.”

Considering any likely rise in cases in coming days during the festivals, the district officials said that they have prepared a provision of 1,100 L1 category beds and have directed for all ICU and ventilator beds to be operational.

“At present, there is no shortage of beds in the district and we are prepared to meet any likely rise in number of patients. We also have sufficient stock of medicines to meet requirement for about 1,000 additional patients. Awareness and enforcement is taken up during the festival season, besides increased surveillance, contact tracing and testing,” said Ajay Shankar Pandey, district magistrate.

According to the health department data, in government Covid hospitals, the district has a total of 576 beds that include 37 ICU beds and 51 ventilator beds. On November 7, 69 patients were admitted to L2 category facilities while the L3 hospital had 28 Covid patients.

Besides, on November 7, the number of active patients under home isolation stood at 544. Ever since the UP government allowed the home isolation facility in July, a total of 6,958 patients were permitted to go under the home isolation. Of the home isolated patients, 6,414 have already completed their home isolation period, shows the data.

Of the total patients in home isolation, 531 patients were also referred to various government and private hospitals when they reported symptoms or any deterioration in health status. In the state, the home isolation facility is meant only for asymptomatic patients.