Oxygen beds available after weeks, but ICUs are still packed in Gurgaon

Gurgaon: After almost three weeks, Covid hospitals in the city have reported vacant oxygen beds.
As of 8 pm on Thursday, 162 Covid beds were available in Gurgaon and 151 of them were with oxygen support. Two ventilator and nine ICU beds were also vacant, according to Gurugram Covid Combat Companion portal.
The highest number of oxygen beds was available at ESI Hospital (28). As many as 17 oxygen beds were available in Artemis Hospital and also in Medeor Hospital. At Sunrise Hospital, 15 oxygen beds were vacant till Thursday late evening.
“The situation has definitely improved. The positivity rate has dipped and with oxygen supply becoming more regular, we have been able to open up more beds in Covid hospitals. But most ICU and ventilator beds are still occupied,” said deputy commissioner, Gurgaon, Dr Yash Garg.
“We are going to add at least 450 Covid beds in the next seven days. We are also working to make more ICU and ventilator beds available in Gurgaon,” he added.
Officials said that they have asked all Covid hospitals to update data on bed availability on the portal on a regular basis.
“The peak demand phase seems to have petered out. We have more than 100 hospitals onboard with us on coronaharyana.in now. We have requested all hospitals to update their bed numbers as regularly as they can. The nature of demand has changed now and it seems more people have learnt to identify the symptoms early on. They are trying to monitor and treat patients at home under expert guidance. Early intervention can prevent the situation from deteriorating in most cases. Now, more people are looking for ICU, ventilator and ECMO beds,” said Manesar commissioner Munish Sharma, who is also the nodal officer for Gurgaon’s Covid bed management.
Dr Piyush Goel, senior consultant (pulmonary and critical care), Columbia Asia Hospital, Palam Vihar, said that the number of distress calls has come down significantly.
“For the past three weeks, I was getting at least one call every hour with an inquiry for a bed in the hospital. Now, the number is much less. Although our ICU is full, because we have older patients who are very critical, our oxygen bed availability is increasing, because many patients are being discharged daily after recovery,” he said.
According to Dr Arunesh Kumar, head of department, Paras Chest Institute and senior pulmonologist, Paras Hospital, Gurgaon, the number of fresh admissions has come down marginally.
“I think the curfew has helped. The situation is better than what it was a couple of weeks back,” he said.
After weeks of oxygen crisis at Covid hospitals, the supply situation has improved, according to officials. “We are getting 47-48 metric tonnes of oxygen for the district daily and the current demand stands at about 55 metric tonne,” said an official from district administration.