AIIMS restricts surgeries, only emergency cases to be taken up

In the wake of rising cases of Covid-19, AIIMS has decided to restrict OT procedures from Saturday with only emergency cases being taken up.

An order issued by hospital medical superintendent Dr DK Sharma on Thursday stated, “It has been decided that OT services needs to be curtailed in response to the heightened need for diversion of infrastructure, manpower and material response for prevention and control of Covid-19 outbreak.”

The country’s top medical institute has also come out with a fresh clinical guidance for management of Covid-19 patients and has already started taking steps to make more space for Covid patients by restricting certain services for non-Covid patients.

The updated guidelines have been released by the department of medicine at AIIMS and gives a comprehensive plan to treat patients with symptoms ranging from mild to severe.

Those with mild symptoms are advised to be treated under home isolation and seek medical attention if they face difficulty in breathing and have high-grade fever. Those under home isolation should continuously monitor oxygen levels. “Steroids should not be used in patients with only mild disease. Ivermectin may be considered in patients with high-risk features,” the guidelines stated.

Patients having respiratory rate more than or equal to 24 breaths per minute or oxygen level less than 94% should be admitted to the ward and treated as a moderate case. For those admitted in the ward, doctors have been advised to go for oxygen therapy, antiviral therapy and a continuous monitoring of the patient. “Convalescent plasma therapy should be considered in carefully selected patients. Remdesivir can be given for five days and can be extended up to 10 days in cases of progressive selected patients,” it added.

A patient has to be shifted to the ICU if he/she is having respiratory rate more than or equal to 30 breaths per minute or the oxygen levels in the room are less than 90%.

“Consider use of high flow nasal cannula in patients with increasing oxygen requirement if work of breathing is low. Tocilizumab may be considered on a case-to-case basis preferably within 24 to 48 hours of progression to severe disease,” it said.
Doctors across the city have highlighted that most patients visiting the hospital in the current surge have milder symptoms since they belong to the younger age group. However, experts have advised that symptoms be carefully monitored so the infection doesn’t spread to the elderly.