CHENNAI: As the number of daily Covid positive cases in Chennai has come down from over 7,000 in the second week of May to less than 4,000 now, the shortage for beds, particularly oxygen beds, has considerably eased at Government Medical College Hospitals here.
There used to be long queues of ambulances with patients outside the hospitals when the cases were peaking. On Thursday, however, there were 500 vacant beds at Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, one of the major hospitals treating Covid patients in Chennai. “We have 2,050 Covid beds and among them 1,522 are oxygen beds. Now we have 1,455 patients and around 500 beds are vacant,” said the hospital Dean, Dr E Theranirajan.
Similarly, Goverment Omandurar Medical College Hospital Dean Dr Jayanthi said that the out-patient case load at the hospital has dipped, and the bed-occupancy situation is better. The hospital has two oxygen beds vacant, and plans are on to add more beds, said Dr Jayanthi. The lockdown has surely helped a lot in mitigating the crisis, say doctors. “It gave us some breathing time. Also the government increased the number of beds in the hospitals,” the added.
The Government Corona Hospital at King Institute at Guindy, where many patients preferred to get admitted, too was comfortably accommodating patients on Thursday. Health Minister Ma Subramanian had recently inaugurated 104 beds with oxygen support at the hospital. The hospital director, Dr K Narayanasamy, said that no patient had to wait for admission on Thursday. Stanley Medical College Hospital Dean Dr P Balaji and Kilpauk Medical College Hospital Dean Dr R Shanthimalar also said that their hospitals have 200 and 21 vacant oxygen beds respectively.