Pune: Sassoon hospital breathes easy, bed vacancy climbs up to 72%

PUNE: The Sassoon General Hospital on Thursday breathed easy with 72% vacant beds after months.
The facility — one of the major dedicated Covid-19 hospitals in the district — had 370 beds vacant against its capacity of 510 in the morning. The vacancy was significant, considering over 50% of the ICU beds (67 against the capacity of 128) vacant at the Sassoon General Hospital (SGH).

The hospital was overburdened for months. On several occasions, ICU beds were unavailable in the months of July and August. In many instances, the facility was unavailable for critical patients because of long waiting list.
An official from the SGH, who did not wish to be named, told TOI that the medical and paramedical staffers had been performing the Covid duty tirelessly for the past few months. For the first time in several weeks, there was as such no rush of patients or relatives, he said.
The administrative controller of the SGH, S Chockalingam, said now was the time to look forward to the non-Covid activities and resume the medical college activities for students.
The SGH official echoed Chockalingam. He said the much-needed breather had given them a chance to turn focus on non-Covid patients and the pending surgeries, delayed by the coronavirus-induced situation. There are 607 doctors, including professors, associate professors, assistant professors and residential doctors, at the SGH.
He said the oxygen augmentation work taken up by the SGH administration in September had improved its basic infrastructure of oxygen beds to around 800.
“We have 510 beds operational at present. If the need arises, we can increase the bed capacity up to 800 now,” he said, adding that the hospital was ready to face the next surge of Covid infection, if there was any.
Santosh Patil, the additional municipal commissioner of Pimpri Chinchwad, said when the SGH was closed, the flow of critical patients increased to the Pimpri jumbo unit. Over 50% of the patients at the facility were from outside the PCMC limits then.