NEW DELHI: As the fourth wave of Covid-19 case rages on in the capital, Delhi government has been increasing the number of ICU and general ward beds for treatment of Covid-19 patients whose number has been doubling every week recently.
On March 31, the number of Covid beds in hospitals was 5,815, but it stood at 10,840 on Friday as per the Delhi Corona mobile application, an increase of 86.4%. The number of ICU beds with ventilators during the same period increased from 787 to 1,157, a rise of 47%.
While on March 31, 1,799, or almost 31%, of the 5,815 beds were occupied, on Friday evening, 5,119 (47.2%) of them were occupied as per the mobile app. Out of the 1,157 ICU beds with ventilators, 729 (63%) were in use, while 1,076 (60%) of the 1,777 of ICU beds without ventilators were taken up.
During the third and deadliest wave of cases in November 2020, more than 16,000 hospital beds were reserved for Covid treatment. With a decline after December, the number of both ward beds and ICU beds were scaled down to cater to non-Covid patients.
On Thursday, Delhi government directed 115 hospitals with 50 beds or more to reserve 50% of their total ICU and ward beds for Covid. As a result, while the number of reserved beds was 8,813 on Thursday, it went up by 2,000 in 24 hours.
Four days ago, the state government had increased the availability of Covid beds in 11 of its hospitals by 1,540 and had directed 54 large private hospitals to reserve at least 30% of their ICU beds and ward beds or double the occupancy, whichever was higher. This measure led to Covid beds increasing from around 6,000 to nearly 9,000.
The number of active cases on Friday stood at 26,631. However, only 26% of these patients were admitted in hospitals, including in ICU. But with the consistent rise in cases, the beds available for Covid might need to be augmented.
The government also directed hospitals to depute sufficient manpower and infrastructure in the holding or triage areas with enough oxygen facility to avoid an unnecessary wait for completing admission procedures and increasing the chances of spreading the coronavirus in such crowded areas. It has instructed doctors belonging to the dental and Ayush cadres to be deployed for Covid duties.