Waiting for test results and beds kills many Covid ‘suspects’ in Mumbai

MUMBAI: Failure to allocate beds to the ‘suspected Covid critical’ patients is proving to be one of the weakest links in the battle against the novel coronavirus in the city. Given the run-around by hospitals, many such patients turn serious and die. Such patients may constitute a significant chunk of the deaths in the city, said doctors.
This subgroup of patients has developed severe symptoms but is denied dedicated Covid beds as the test report is awaited. There are several instances of patients turned away from both dedicated Covid hospitals because they did not have the mandatory test report and from non-Covid facilities because they were showing Covid-like symptoms.
Such patients have to wait a minimum of 48 hours before their test reports arrive. By then, many of them are beyond salvage.