NEW DELHI: Gwalior resident Ashok Jain, 49, tested Covid-positive on September 14 and was admitted to a government hospital there. As his condition deteriorated, his family brought him to the national capital in an ambulance on Thursday. Throughout the day, the family desperately rushed from one hospital to another, but he finally succumbed inside the ambulance. Jain’s family alleged that each of the private hospitals they went to refused to admit him.
“We tried in almost all the top hospitals. We went to Apollo, Ganga Ram, Fortis, Max.... we tried 17-18 hospitals but all of them refused to admit him. Some said no beds are available while some others said beds are only for Delhi patients,” claimed Alok Jain, a family member of the deceased. “We tried to contact hospitals based on the Delhi government’s corona app.
But the app does not show the reality. We took the patient in a serious condition to some hospitals as the app showed beds available, but were turned down as there were no beds.” In the last 15 days, the bed occupancy in Delhi’s based hospitals have gone up, especially ICU beds. As per the Delhi government’s corona app, 60 per cent of the ICU beds with ventilators are occupied.
Out of 1,247 total beds with ventilators, 756 were occupied and only 491 remained available till Friday evening. Among ICU beds without ventilators, 489 remained available out of a total 1,539 while 1,050 were occupied. Government hospitals such as Lok Nayak Jai Prakash, Rajiv Gandhi Super Specialty, Guru Teg Bahadur, Sardar Vallab Bhai Patel, Lady Hardinge Medical College, Baba Saheb Ambedkar and Holy Family hospitals as well as AIIMS-Jhajjar were showing to have fewer beds with ventilators available.
AIIMS, Safdarjung, RML, Army Hospital, Hindu Rao, Max Saket and Sir Ganga Ram hospitals were among the facilities running short of ventilator beds. Major hospitals such as Deep Chand Bandhu, Northern Railway, VIMHANS, Batra, Max Shalimar Bagh, Indraprastha Apollo, Saroj Super Specialty, Max Patparganj and Max Saket hospitals are already out of ventilators.