As serious case load goes up, city’s Covid hospitals ready ‘semi-ICUs’

Noida: With the number of Covid cases rising by the day, intensive care units (ICUs) in L3 hospitals are facing severe pressure. On an average, three patients are waiting for an ICU bed across most L3 hospitals in the district. Both government and private hospitals have now begun preparing high dependency units (HDU), which are like semi-ICUs, to address the rising numbers.
Dr RK Gupta, director of Government Institute of Medical Sciences (GIMS) Greater Noida, said, “We are facing acute shortage of ICU beds, especially since only serious, critical and comorbid patients are coming to the hospital these days. They need a minimum of 48 hours ICU care to stabilise in the initial stage itself, while overall at least 15 days are required for patients to recover from an ICU. We have a 10-bed ICU, which is currently full.”
GIMS has now arranged a 20-bed HDU in a separate ward. “This is like a semi ICUs where we keep serious patients — seniors, those with comorbidity, and low oxygen saturation patients — while more critical patients including those on ventilators are kept in the ICU. We need at least 50 beds for the ICU right now,” Dr Gupta added.
In Sharda Hospital, which is treating critically ill patients mostly, there is a 20-bed ICU facility. “The ICU is fully occupied. Being a level 3 hospital, we need more ICU beds. Anyway, for the time being, we have ramped up additional 20 beds in the form of HDUs,” said Dr Ajit Kumar, the joint registrar.
The L3 Yatharth hospital in Noida Extension is the only hospital in the district which can ramp up ICU facility to double its capacity of current 14 beds and 17 in HDU, but it does not promise further if patient numbers continue to rise.
According to Dr Sunil Kumar, medical superintendent of Yatharth hospital, “Currently, we have 80 Covid positive patients admitted in the hospital. Out of these, 12 are in ICU, 14 in HDU area and six patients are on oxygen support in rooms. We still have two beds from each ICU and HDU available but not for long, as daily patients are rising.”
At Kailash hospital, Sunil Sharma, a senior manager (administration), said they have already expanded their ICU capacity from 10 to 35 beds. Meanwhile, of the 40 beds for Covid patients at Fortis hospital in Sector 62 Noida, nine beds are allotted for ICU and additional 13 as HDUs.
District magistrate Suhas LY, however, claimed there’s no shortage of beds. “We have a lot of capacity left in the ICU. We are getting a new district hospital with ICU capacityin Sector 39. Also, we have private hospitals,” he said.