Lucknow: Cases of coronavirus soar, but fewer critical care beds available

LUCKNOW: The city recorded over 900 new Covid-19 cases for the third consecutive day on Monday, overwhelming the already overburdened critical care facilities in various hospitals.
The 950 new cases took the city’s tally since the outbreak to 33,453. Of these 24,358 (72.8%) patients have recovered and 8,643 (25.3%) patients are in hospitals or home isolation.
Around 48% of the total isolation beds for mild symptomatic patients were vacant in city hospitals, but 84% of HDU beds and 96% ICU/ventilator beds were occupied.
According to the bed availability status report, there are 3,750 beds in 29 hospitals, government-aided and private, that have been designated as Covid facilities in L1, L2 and L3 categories.
Of the total beds, 2,051 beds were vacant on Monday afternoon. However, the situation of high dependency units (HDU) and ICU/ventilators was grim — only 88 out of 569 HDUs and 10 out of 282 ICU/ventilator beds were vacant, in comparison to Sunday afternoon when 113 HDUs and 10 ICU/ventilator beds were available.
In fact, top medical institutes—KGMU, SGPGIMS and RMLIMS—were working almost to capacity.
In KGMU, all 40 and 60 ICU/ventilator beds were full, while 39 of 116 isolation beds were vacant. Its new Covid hospital with 100 ICU and 220 HDUs is expected to become operational in two days and bring some relief.
Similarly, in RMLIMS, all the 30 HDUs and 20 ICU/ventilators were full. Around 27 isolation beds out of 83 were free.
In SGPGIMS, of the total 202 beds in Covid hospital, only six were available — four isolation beds and two ICU /ventilator, while HDUs were full. The hospital has total 104 isolation beds, 20 HDUs and 78 ICU/ventilators
At Era’s Lucknow Medical College and Hospital, all the 20 ICU/ventilators were occupied and only one of 80 HDUs was vacant.
At Integral Institute of Medical Science, none of the 10 ICU/ventilators was free and only four of 70 HDUs were available.
The situation was similar at other hospitals.