NEW DELHI: With Delhi reeling under a fourth and more devastating corona wave, crisis of ICU beds with ventilators has once again come to the fore. As per the Delhi Corona App, created by the AAP government, there are only 110 ICU beds with ventilators available in the city now. Delhi has got a total of 1,168 such beds of which 1,057 have already been occupied, which is more than 90 per cent. City’s top hospitals, both private and government, have got no ICU ventilator beds empty.
State-run hospitals Lok Nayak Hospital and Rajiv Gandhi Super Specialty Hospital whose bed with ventilator capacity was increased to 200 each is totally occupied. Sir Ganga Ram Hospital has only 2 beds available, as shown in app till 4pm. Other hospital chains such as Max (apart from one in Saket), Apollo and Fortis are also full. Few facilities such as GTB hospital, AIIMS Trauma, Safdarjung Hospital, Deen Dayal Upadhyay hospitals have ICU ventilator beds available.
For general category beds, the occupancy per cent is 63.66, while in ICU beds with ventilators it is above 82 per cent. The surge of cases has also led to demand of drug Remdesirvir used for treating Covid-19 patients. Though on Tuesday, the Central Health Ministry said that Remdesivir should be used as an investigational therapy only on hospitalized Covid-19 patients with oxygen support, many of the chemists have started selling it directly from store.
“Remdesirvir is not to be sold by chemists. It should only be supplied at hospitals but it is not available there as well. There is a crisis of this injection now. The hospitals are asking kin to get the injection and families in hurry are purchasing it at even much higher cost. While its rate is Rs 5000, they are buying it at Rs 8000- Rs 9000. Daily, we are seeing 40-50 people in Delhi seeking for the injection. Now this shortage is artificially created or genuinely that can’t be said,” said Kailash Gupta, President of All India Chemists and Distribution Federation. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also said that if doctors feel that a particular patient can be cured from home, they are being requested to go back home.
“This is not the hospital or government shirking from responsibility. We will provide such patients with an oximeter, our doctors will be calling them regularly to keep a check. We will monitor their situation even at home This step is important to ensure that serious patients have beds available in hospitals,” he stated.