10 days after directive on 900 beds, Gurugram fails to add any

GURUGRAM: On April 26, chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar had outlined a plan to add around 900 oxygen beds for Covid patients in the city.
These hospitals were to come up in vacant flats of an M3M condominium in Sector 67 condominium (400 beds) in collaboration with Medanta, at the HSVP auditorium in Sector 43 (100 beds) and SGT hospital (400 beds).
In the ten days between then and Thursday, the city has averaged in excess of 3,000 new infections every day. But so far, none of those 900 beds has been activated for patients at a time when Covid beds in the city are full and people are travelling to other districts or even states for treatment.
The main challenge, officials say, is medical oxygen. Adding oxygen beds will drive up demand and almost inevitably lead to a flurry of SOS calls from various hospitals. The oxygen supply lines have relatively stabilised this week after a tense fortnight for hospitals and the Gurugram administration that saw a daily scramble to deliver oxygen to hospitals on time. At two private hospitals – Kriti and Kathuria – 10 patients died, allegedly after the facilities ran out of oxygen.
The other reason officials cite is an inadequate number of skilled professionals like nurses, ICU specialists and medical officers. The number of active Covid-19 cases in the city is now around 40,000 and the list of people waiting to get a hospital bed is getting longer. ICU and ventilator beds are not immediately available. All 2,459 beds allotted for Covid patients are full.
According to a senior government official, 250 beds have been arranged at the Sector 67 condominium and more than 60 beds have been set up at the HSVP auditorium. But they haven’t been activated because there isn’t enough oxygen supply. Efforts are on to procure more oxygen cylinders and concentrators to get these facilities up and running.
“We will start operations at these places only after all arrangements are made. When these beds become functional, more health workers and doctors will be needed too, but the health department and private hospitals are already facing a shortage of professionals,” the official added.
SGT hospital’s capacity expansion to 500 beds is likely to take another fortnight, at least. The hospital does not have an oxygen storage tank, which needs to be built before it can accommodate more Covid patients. According to the health department, SGT hospital has only 50 oxygen beds now.