GURUGRAM:
Covid cases are rising in the city and so is occupancy of
ICU and ventilator
beds. But the severity of cases has come down in the past one month.
Data sourced from the health department suggests there were 343 active cases in Gurugram district on March 1. Of them, 15 Covid
patients or 4.3% were in the ICU and four persons or 1.1% were on ventilator support.
Although the bed occupancy by Covid patients in the
critical category has increased multiple times since March 1, the severity of the cases is lower when compared to the number of active cases. As of Saturday, Gurugram had 5,013 active cases. Of them, 92 patients or 1.8% were in the ICU and 30 patients or 0.6% were on ventilator support. This suggests that fewer patients are turning critical now.
However, when viewed in absolute terms, the ICU bed occupancy in city hospitals has increased six-fold and that of ventilator beds seven times in the past one month. The rise in the number of Covid patients has become a cause for concern for health officials, who fear non-emergency services will again get affected.
“What comes as a respite is that patients are less critical this time and we have sufficient beds as of now. This severity of cases is also reflected in the fatality rate, which is 0.5% at present,” said Virender Yadav, the chief medical officer.
The health department’s data also suggests that the occupancy of general beds meant for Covid patients has also gone up from 106 on March 1 to 432 on Saturday. “Last year, the number of patients coming to us was gradual. But this time, the numbers are rising exponentially. However, we have patients with less severity and beds are also available at the moment,” said Dr Anjali Kaul, medical superintendent at Artemis Hospitals.
However, doctors fear that if cases continue to rise by leaps and bounds, the city’s health infrastructure would be overburdened. “The graph of Covid cases is going up quickly, which means that health infrastructure has to be strengthened. But more and more people are also getting admitted for routine surgeries, heart ailments and other illnesses. Along with them, Covid beds are also getting filled fast. So, it is going to be a testing time for hospitals. If people don’t get beds, it would lead to chaos,” said Dr Sushila Kataria, director and head of internal medicine at Medanta — The Medicity.
Dr Kataria said that of the 92 ICU beds occupied at city hospitals, 60% were at Medanta. “We had 30 Covid patients in the beginning of March. Now, we have around 190 patients in the Covid ward. We are getting at least 70 to 80 requests every day for Covid beds,” she added.