CUTTACK: The Central Intensive Care Unit(CICU) of SCB Medical College and Hospital was shut down for four days from Thursday after 14 staff tested positive for Covid-19. Three days back, six staff of the CICU were found infected.The 30-bed CICU is located at the Casualty building on its fourth floor. Of the 30 beds, while one bed is reserved for critical dialysis patients, two beds are meant for isolation of infected patients, eight beds for stepdown patients and the rest 19 beds have been kept unreserved for general critical patients.
There are a total of 31 staff in the unit.As per reports, after a critical patient undergoing treatment at the unit tested positive recently, swab samples were collected from the staff who had come in contact with him and sent for examination. Of them, a total of 21 staff were found positive this week and Wednesday’s tally included 11 nurses, two pharmacists and a security guard.
“While all the infected staff have been kept in isolation rooms at SCB MCH, the Central ICU will be fumigated. The fumigation will take 96 hours after which the facility will be opened to resume the critical health care service,” informed SCB MCH Emergency Officer Dr Bhubanananda Moharana. While the critical patients undergoing treatment at the Central ICU have been shifted to Trauma ICUs, the others have been kept in relevant departments, he informed.
Meanwhile, Cuttack district on Thursday reported another highest single-day spike of 492 Covid-19 cases taking the tally to 7,010. The new cases include highest 302 cases from Cuttack Municipal Corporation(CMC) area and the rest 190 cases from rural parts of the district.Of the 302 cases detected in CMC area, while 81 cases have been reported from institutional quarantine and 103 cases from home quarantine, 118 cases are locally transmitted.As on Wednesday, the total number of positive cases in CMC area stands at 4,171 with 1,730 active cases. As many as 2,418 patients have recovered while the disease has claimed 23 lives so far in CMC area.