25% of critical patients undergoing treatment in Pune from other districts: Dist Collector Ram

The Pune civic administration has been increasing bed capacity in the city adding 159 ICU beds with ventilators, 95 beds without ventilators and 348 beds with oxygen

The Pune civic administration has been increasing bed capacity in the city adding 159 ICU beds with ventilators, 95 beds without ventilators and 348 beds with oxygen in the city during the 10-day lockdown period. However, patients are complaining of non-availability of beds in public as well as private hospitals.

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According Pune district collector Naval Kishore Ram, “One of the reasons for the burden on the local health infrastructure is that at least 25-30 per cent of critical patients undergoing treatment in Pune are from other districts. These are neighbouring districts like Ahmednagar, Satara, Sangli and Solapur and mostly patients take treatment at Sassoon and other public hospitals.”

“We cannot refuse treatment to any patient coming to Pune as it is a medical hub. However, we are going to write to the state government requesting it to direct the collectors of other districts to scale up their medical infrastructure,” said Ram, while stressing that this will reduce the burden on Pune.

As on July 25, city’s tally of critical patients stood at 673, of which 115 were on ventilator support and 376 are undergoing oxygen therapy in ICU while remaining 189 are in non-invasive ventilator support.

Currently, Pune has an official capacity of 3,701 beds with oxygen support and 475 beds with ventilator support.

As a precautionary measure, the Pune district administration has increased the number of beds at Sassoon, Naidu, Dalvi, Ruby and Budhrani Hospital due to rising demand from the city and also due to the fact that patients from outside Pune were being admitted there for Covid-19 treatment.

However, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has projected that by August 31, there will be shortage of 1,982 ventilators, 4,065 ICU beds without Oxygen, 7,084 beds isolation beds with oxygen considering the rise of critical patients in the coming days.

Officer on special duty at Pune divisional commissionerate Saurabh Rao said, “There is no question of denying beds to anyone coming from outside. It is a fact that the number of patients are rising and patients from outside Pune are coming here for treatment. However, nobody can be stopped and the administration cannot say no to any of the patients from outside the district.”

To mitigate the shortage, Ram said that the provision of additional bed facilities have been made in the different talukas of the district.