SAMBALPUR: The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds and dialysis units lying unused at district headquarters hospital (DHH) here after closure of the dedicated Covid-19 facility here, will be soon available for general patients.
The district administration is planning to make the units functional at the earliest. Sambalpur DHH was converted into a Covid hospital in April following which 20 ICU beds, two dialysis units and 10 Step Down Units (SDU) were installed. Subsequently, as the coronavirus situation improved in the district and another 120-bed Covid hospital was set up at VIMSAR, the dedicated facility at the DHH was closed.
With the DHH resuming healthcare delivery to general patients, there was a demand for making the ICU and dialysis units used in Covid hospital functional. Residents of Sambalpur as well as nearby districts of Jharsuguda and Deogarh are dependent on the DHH for their healthcare needs. Though the hospital has basic facilities, critical patients are shifted to VIMSAR in absence of ICU facilities here.
On the other hand, VIMSAR despite being the premier healthcare centre of western Odisha, has severe dearth of ICU beds. The hospital has only 20 ICU beds against the general bed strength of 1,100. Similarly, the dialysis facilities are incapable of catering to the large inflow of patients.
Sources said the Covid hospital stopped functioning on the DHH premises from November 20 but ICU beds and dialysis units have not been made functional in absence of trained technicians and doctors. In the seven months when the Covid hospital was functional, doctors and technicians were deployed there to operate the dialysis units and ICU beds. As they were withdrawn after closure of the dedicated facility, the equipment are now lying idle.
Sambalpur Collector Subham Saxena said, the district administration and VIMSAR authorities are planning to make the ICU functional at Sambalpur DHH. “We are evaluating the requirements for the facility. The proposal will be presented before the Revenue Divisional Commissioner (RDC) and once it is finalised, we will work towards implementing it.”
Official sources said the district administration has asked VIMSAR to spare specialist doctors and technical support for the utilisation of dialysis and ICU units at the DHH.