NAGPUR: As the Covid bed availability scenario is becoming grimmer by the day in city, Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) on Monday took a slew of measures to ensure citizens do not face any problem in finding bed for critical patients.
The NMC has directed private hospitals to start triaging Covid patients and immediately refer all step-down ones and stable cases to Covid Care Centre (CCC) or in home isolation. The civic body will now follow up admission of all people, who call up its helpline seeking beds, and more private hospitals will be asked to start Covid treatment.
As the Covid caseload is gradually shifting from private to public hospitals, both the tertiary medical colleges were asked to increase functional beds. Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) would be shifting its vaccination centre to pave way for 40 high dependency unit (HDU) beds at Ward 49, while Indira Gandhi Government Medical College & Hospital (IGGMCH) will be getting manpower to run as many beds.
Both the medical colleges are grappling with shortage of doctors and nurses as many in-house staffers have tested Covid positive.
The civic body is also recalling doctors and nurses who were recruited during the August-September Covid wave.
The medical colleges too started shifting step-down patients to MLA CCC, which was re-started on Monday. Another 78 oxygenated beds will be run at Pachpaoli CCC, where staff training has commenced. The NMC has also asked Shalinitai Meghe Hospital and Research Centre (SMHRC) to restart 300 beds. This time, the hospital would function as Dedicated Covid Hospital (DCH).
Additional municipal commissioner Ram Joshi said civic chief Radhakrishnan B held a review meeting in the morning. “The civic chief has asked GMCH and IGGMCH to start more Covid beds. We have also asked railway hospitals to start Covid treatment or provide their staff for Ayush Hosptial at Sadar,” he said.
Additional municipal commissioner Jalaj Sharma said around 500 Covid beds were available as on Monday morning in private DCHs. “We have increased the number of hospitals and would be asking even smaller establishments to admit Covid patients. Our helpline is running and staff will follow-up callers till the patients get admitted. Our dashboard too displays updates of bed availability and we are trying to make it zone-wise so that people know which hospital is available in their area,” he said.
Sharma advised citizens not to ask for specific hospitals as beds may not be available there. Civic officials have observed that people seek information about bed availability at specific hospital and this is causing an impression of bed shortage.
Sharma also said that the city has 905 ICU beds in private hospitals. “Let the doctor or hospital decide what type of care a patient needs. Relatives themselves are deciding that their patient needs ICU,” he said.
Regarding triaging, Sharma said, “Each bed is a scare resource now and hospitals have been strictly told to ensure beds are not unnecessarily occupied by mild patients, who can be treated at step-down facilities. This will ease pressure on tertiary hospitals.”
Since last week, citizens are unable to get a bed in Covid hospitals easily as they are said to be running full following the surge in daily cases. On Monday morning, NGO TogetherWeCan received a couple of distress calls from citizens whose entire family has tested positive and some of them needed hospitalization. Some positive persons even ventured out in search of beds as NMC helpline didn’t respond, said a representative from the NGO.
Beds In Nagpur City As On March 22
Total beds | 4,316
Government hosps | 1,666
Private hosps | 2,650
(Available on record, but not active)
Break-up
Oxygen beds | 2,617
ICU | 1,158
Pvt ICU | 905
Ventilator | 486
(*Figures of DCH added/removed recently not included)
Occupied
Total | 1,550 in private
Govt | 1,050
Patients admitted
Approvx 4,000 at over 90 DCHs, DCHCs, and CCCs in the district
NMC Dashboard
https://covid19.nagpurlivecity.com/
(Citizens can refer the dashboard to know DCH in city)
What happened on Monday
*Municipal commissioner held meeting with deans, additional commissioners and health department
* Asks medical colleges to activate more beds according to their committed capacity of around 600 each
* NMC asks private hospitals to triage patients and shift mild cases in home isolation or CCC
* Patients/kin complain they were unable to find Covid bed anywhere
* Some said medical colleges refused to admit them, while NMC referred them to Covid set-up on city outskirts