THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The possibility of Covid-19 patients finding it difficult to get ICU beds looks real as the number of patients in treatment keeps rising. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that the state has prepared the surge capacity to deal with the situation and the occupancy in ICU beds was just 18.2 per cent and ventilators at 7.35 per cent.However the hospitals treating Covid-19 patients have already started facing pressure as more patients require beds with oxygen support.
The ventilator beds in medical colleges have almost filled up and there have been instances when the patients were referred to private facilities for want of beds. The situation is worst in Ernakulam where the number of active patients has crossed 21,000.
“The peak is expected to be in the first week of May. So we still have more than 14 days when the number of active patients keeps increasing. It takes at least 10 days for a patient to recover. So the number of patients requiring treatment will be around three to four lakh, if we go by conservative estimates. Around one per cent of them (3,000- 4,000) will require ICU beds and that is more than we could absorb,” said Dr S S Santhoshkumar, deputy superintendent, Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram.
According to him, the crisis being faced by each district varies and those with most number of patients will feel the pinch early. The government hospitals have a total ICU beds of 2669 for both Covid and non-Covid patients.
The private hospitals have 7,085 ICU beds. According to the state secretary of Indian Medical Association, Dr Gopikumar P, the beds are fast filling up in private facilities too. “The decision to impose restrictions depends on the health system’s capacity to absorb patient load. So we have increased the restrictions as there is a concern that the surge in Covid-19 patients in coming days would put more pressure on the health care infrastructure, said a top official.