Panaji: Aiming to reduce the COVID mortality rate, the state’s premier medical institute Goa Medical College and Hospital, Bambolim, on Friday reserved three of its wards for admitting extremely critical COVID patients.
Health Minister Vishwajit Rane told a press conference in Panaji that severely critical COVID patients, who are currently in different wards of the GMC as well as in the Margao-based COVID Hospital, will be moved to the ward numbers 145, 146 and 147 of the GMC.
COVID patients will now receive treatment under the direct supervision of specialist doctors, he said, adding that all GMC facilities would be used for the treatment of the COVID patients.
“The extremely critical COVID patients will receive treatment for the virus. They will also be treated for their co-morbidities. Our all efforts are to see that the condition of the co-morbid patients is improved, and that we are able to save their lives,” Rane maintained.
He said the GMC has been directed to take all required precautions for the safety of non-COVID patients.
The minister said that a 30-bedded ward of the department of skin and VD has also been earmarked for keeping COVID patients under observation after they undergo surgical procedures.
The Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd will help the GMC administration in setting up infrastructure, if needed, he said, maintaining that the state health department has sufficient number of ventilators at its healthcare facilities.
Health secretary Nila Mohanan, who also attended the press conference, said that two of the 14 critical COVID patients, who had been treated using convalescent plasma therapy, have recovered from the disease and are stable.
Associate Professor at the GMC’s department of pulmonary medicine, Dr Uday Kakodkar, who is the nodal officer for the Margao COVID Hospital, said the current recovery rate is 65.8 per cent, and that the death rate is less than one per cent in the state claiming that Goa’s COVID mortality rate is lowest in the country.
A total of 1,126 symptomatic patients hospitalised with COVID; 65 of them have succumbed to the virus, Dr Kakodkar said.
The coronavirus death rate at the Margao COVID Hospital is 5.77 per cent, he said, adding that important life-saving antiviral drugs recommended by the ICMR are being prescribed to COVID patients.
“Around 31 symptomatic patients have been given the doses of remdesivir and three patients are being treated with tocilizumab,” Dr Kakodkar explained.
