Nagpur: A former captain of VCA junior cricket team died recently of Covid-19 after he failed to get a bed in any hospital. The second wave of Covid-19 pandemic is proving more deadly with hundreds of patients succumbing to it in the last couple of weeks, many of them failing to get the oxygen or ventilator beds in the city. Social workers blamed it on lack of planning by both, the government and civic authorities in upgrading the health infrastructure of the city.
When many PILs were filed last year, Nagpur bench of Bombay high court had passed a slew of directives to both the government and Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) to increase beds and other infrastructure in city hospitals, particularly at Government Medical College (GMCH) and Mayo Hospital (IGGMCH).
State health minister Rajesh Tope visited the city on September 24-25, when first wave was at its peak, and had instructed to add 400 beds at GMCH to make it a 1,000 bed unit. The government had assured the HC in November it would do so but that remained only on paper. Only recently, when the cases spiked again, the GMCH added a measly 100 beds.
Activists slammed the administration for leaving the patients to fend for themselves. According to them, the patients have started going to Amravati, Akola, Bhandara and even to Hyderabad in search of hospital beds.
Anu Chhabrani, running an NGO Together We Can, which is helping the administration in managing the crisis, blamed it on the leaders who failed to take steps when patients’ numbers were less. “Now, they’re ordering the bureaucrats, who were doing their job sincerely. These leaders should have boosted health infrastructure instead of making flyovers and bridges. It would have helped save hundreds of lives. We have been bringing hospitals and funds to the administration for Covid patients, but under diktats from the leaders, no one is paying heed to our appeals,” she said.
Social activist Shailesh Pandey suggested the administration must take over all marriage halls for quarantine of positive patients. “It would need only basic arrangements like beds, mattresses. These places generally have multiple toilets. Quarantine of positive patients (who do not require hospitalization) will contain spread of the virus,” he said.