Glitches spoil first day of real-time bed portal

KOLKATA: Glitches in the integrated Covid management system that was to provide real-time status of bed availability in hospitals and also enable online admission of Covid patients left family members of patients desperate for beds fuming. Following the criticism, the state government has asked the health department to streamline the system.
Relatives of patients complained that with a time lag of 24 hours (at 11.30 am on Friday, the bed status portal showed the last update had been done around noon on Thursday), none of the bed vacancy status matched. Many patients went down to hospitals on the basis of bed vacancy were told there was no vacant bed.
At some private hospitals, empty beds were shown but they said they had none for over 24 hours. Sources said the status reflected beds that the government was to requisition but that they had not received any intimation on it from the government yet.
“We thought our hospitalization nightmare ended with the introduction of the system, but it did not work, at least on the first day after its introduction,” said Amit Kedia, a New Alipore resident, who was frantically looking for a bed for his friend.
Also, the phone numbers of hospitals mentioned on the portal were either incorrect or not attended to. So, a lot of people, who frantically checked out the system to get near and dear ones admitted, were left frustrated.
The health department officials admitted that real-time update wasn’t happening. “Right now, it is being updated twice a day — at noon and at 6pm. Though hospitals can update the bed status anytime, they have left it to the central team. We are asking hospitals to update it on a real-time basis. Some hospitals have resource and manpower problems. We are looking into it,” the official said.
In the afternoon, the health department held a meeting with private hospitals and stressed on the need to do so on a real-time basis. Hospitals said it would be very important to update such status on a real-time basis as manpower resources have already been stretched. But the health department made it clear that the real-time update is the most important for seamless admission to hospitals to avoid any untoward circumstances.
The health department sources said that efforts were on to have points men at every hospital to assess and update bed status. “We hope to overcome the teething issues shortly,” he added.