The health care facilities in the twin cities are facing an impending crisis situation with COVID-designated Gandhi Hospital in Secunderabad, Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences (TIMS) in Gachibowli and over a dozen corporate hospitals declaring all the beds in Intensive Care Units (ICU) full on Monday.
Although the official health bulletin issued quoting Sunday’s data said that in Gandhi Hospital, out of the 500 ICU beds with ventilator, 338 were occupied and 162 are vacant, the real picture is more dire, top health officials revealed on condition of anonymity.
Of the 1,000 beds with oxygen facility, 202 are occupied and 798 vacant but “filling up fast”. Critical cases in these wards cannot be shifted to the ICUs as they are already filled to capacity. Similarly, in TIMS, all the 137 ICU beds are full even if the bulletin claimed 82 were occupied and 55 vacant. These will be full by tonight is the official estimate, pointing towards the grim situation.
Leading corporate hospitals too are overstretched unable to provide ICU beds. “There has been acute shortage of COVID positive beds at our hospital for the past one week. There have been no additional discharges so we are turning away COVID patients due to the non-availability of beds,” a top representative shared.
Yet another top executive of another hospital said the “situation is so bad that the beds in casualty and emergency wings are teeming with COVID-positive patients waiting for beds in the ICU and other private rooms. In fact, there is a waiting list of COVID positive patients waiting for beds,” he said.
Top government officials lamented that “critical” cases were being discharged from the corporate hospitals against medical advice and being sent to Gandhi and TIMS Hospitals. “Death rates are rising because patients in precarious condition are being brought in ambulances to these two hospitals. Alarmingly, we are only expecting the situation to deteriorate in the next few days,” they fear.
Fast depleting oxygen stocks in the private hospitals is making them panic and critical patients are being hurriedly being discharged to avoid the high casualties in their own facilities. “This is forcing families of the patients to rush them to Gandhi and other government facilities,” they claimed and added that the situation in the districts is equally bad.
