Bed-pooling for critical patients? NCR cities in UP work on infra-sharing plan

Ghaziabad: The Ghaziabad health department has decided to reserve 20% of beds in private hospitals that have the expertise to deal with critical Covid patients. A proposal is, meanwhile, in the works to create a pool of critical care beds that can be shared by NCR districts in the Meerut zone.
Officials said the decisions were taken because the district administration anticipated a sharp rise in Covid cases over the next few days because of enhanced testing. If the plan for creating a bed pool gets the government’s nod, patients from Ghaziabad could be admitted to hospitals in Meerut or Noida and vice-versa. Under the proposal, the health departments of the districts in the Meerut zone will have the right to admit patients to any hospital where beds are vacant. However, patients will have to pay the subsided charges fixed by the government for Covid care if they are admitted to these private hospitals registered under the pool system.
“We are working extensively on this plan and are in talks with several private hospitals. This way, we will able to increase the number of beds in many categories, especially for critical care (level 3 hospitals),” said NK Gupta, the Ghaziabad chief medical officer.
So far, Max Hospital in Vaishali has agreed to provide 20 beds for critical Covid patients, including three in the ICU. A representative of the hospital confirmed the arrangement to TOI.
Officials in the health department said they had reached a similar agreement with Navin Hospital for seven beds — five in the isolation ward and two in ICU. However, the hospital management ruled out such a deal.
“We are running a 60-bed Covid facility. So, giving up so many beds would not be feasible for us,” said Dr Mahesh Chaudhary, director (operations) of Navin Hospital.
Before the proposal to create a bed pool was placed , health officials in Ghaziabad had demanded that they be allowed to provide treatment to critical Covid patients at a multi-speciality hospital. As of now, there is no arrangement to refer a critical patient from a level 3 facility to a super-speciality hospital.
Sources said the proposal had been discussed during a recent meeting chaired by Meerut divisional commissioner Anita Meshram to review Ghaziabad’s preparedness to deal with rising cases as well as deaths.
“The idea behind this pool system is to ensure that we have enough beds for critical patients. Under the system, LLRM Hospital and Subharti Hospital in Meerut, GIMS in Noida and Rama Medical College in Hapur can come together to treat critical patients,” a senior official added.
Santosh Hospital, Ghaziabad’s only level 3 government facility, has 400 beds, 20 of them in the ICU with ventilators. There are several private hospitals that are equipped to deal with critical Covid patients. However, given the ongoing intensive testing drive, concerns have been raised over the number of Covid beds in the district.
“Ghaziabad’s healthcare infrastructure is not very robust. For long, its residents were dependent on hospitals in Delhi and Meerut. After the Covid outbreak, all borders were sealed and the situation turned grim for critical patients. There is an urgent need to change this and allow admission of patients to other centres,” the health official said.