Mad rush eases, care centres allow walk-ins

NEW DELHI: When the Sardar Patel Covid Care Centre at Radha Soami Satsang Beas in south Delhi’s Chhattarpur area restarted on April 26 with 150 oxygen beds, patients from not only the capital but as far away as Ghaziabad and Ballabhgarh also landed up at the facility as the number of Covid cases in the second wave was growing exponentially.
The facility came as a ray of hope for those searching frantically for elusive beds back then, but the ‘admission protocol’ allowed only cases referred by district surveillance officials after assessment of details and eligibility. Walk-in patients were not being admitted. This resulted in chaos outside the facility on day one and some heated arguments too.
Around 10 pm on Monday, there were 251 vacant oxygenated beds out of total 500 available at the facility, according to the Delhi government’s online Corona dashboard. Now, walk-in patients are welcome at the centre too, but the declining number of cases and a dip in positivity rate have resulted in easy availability of beds.
“There are vacant beds at the centre now and walk-in admissions are also taking place. There is adequate availability of medical oxygen, medicines, etc,” said Vivek Pandey, spokesperson of Indo-Tibetan Border Police, which is managing the facility. Pandey, however, said that “the demand now is more for ICU beds for patients whose oxygen saturation levels have dipped below 85 or even 80% and many inquiry calls from such patients are received.”
“Though only non-invasive treatment is provided at the facility, which has seen 886 patients getting discharged from more than 1,200 who have been admitted till date, equipment like BiPAP machines and others are available here. Many serious cases have also been treated here, including some cases where the patient’s oxygen saturation level had dipped to 50%,” he said.
The fact that demand for ICU beds remains high is evident from the figures of bed occupancy in the city now, compared with 15 days ago. On May 2, the number of hospital beds occupied was 20,136, which came down to 15,542 on Monday, May 17 even though the total number of beds went up.
On the other hand, while 5,134 ICU beds were occupied on May 2, the number of occupied ICU beds was 5,698 on May 17. There has been, however, a significant increase in the number of ICU beds since then – from 5,154 on May 2 to 6,575 on Monday. This includes the ICU bed facilities set up near LNJP and GTB hospitals, with 500 beds each.
The other Covid Care Centres also remain largely vacant as demand for oxygenated beds has gone down in the city. Sant Nirankari Covid Care and Treatment Centre at Burari, for instance, has 1,044 beds but 908 of these were vacant on Monday evening. Similarly, 739 out of the 800 beds at the centre at Yamuna Sports Complex, 397 of the 460 beds at CWG complex centre, 171 out of the 250 beds at the centre at Gurdwara Rakab Ganj and 75 out of the 100 beds at Shehnai Banquet hall annexed to LNJP hospital are vacant.