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With the troubled experience of patient families during the second wave a not-so-distant memory, hospitals are gearing up to tackle the Omicron variant and any eventuality that could come with it.
Dr Suresh Kumar, Director, Delhi’s Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital, is not worried, as most of the suspected Omicron patients are asymptomatic. However, he says, “we have 50 isolated beds in the hospital for those coming from the airport...we also have 500 separate ICU Covid beds at Ram Lila Maidan to tackle the rise in infections”.
Omicron cases
At present, 23 Omicron cases have been reported in the country. The Centre has written to the States to have designated facilities for Omicron to prevent cross-infection with other Covid cases.
In fact, the World Health Organization chief, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, too, has urged countries to act.
“If countries wait until their hospitals start to fill up, it’s too late,” he cautioned.
Narottam Sharma, Chief Medical Officer at Jaipur, pointed out: “After the second wave, we developed nearly 45 oxygen plants. We have reserved 10,000 Covid beds, including in private hospitals. Besides this, we have allocated oxygen cylinders to the community health centres (CHC). Medicines have been stocked for the next four months. We have trained doctors and nursing staff at CHC level.”
Similar preparations are reported by Dr Ritu Garg, Zonal Director, Fortis Memorial Research Institute.
“We have upgraded our infrastructure, including installation of oxygen-generating plants, ECMO machines and additional oxygen concentrators. We have more bed capacity, which can be turned into ICUs if needed,” she said.
In Gujarat, where only one Omicron case had been reported, the State government has set up dedicated Omicron wards in government-run hospitals in major cities, including in Ahmedabad and Surat.
Ahmedabad civil hospital has two Omicron wards, while in Surat, 300 beds have been reserved for Omicron cases. Jamnagar, where the first Omicron case in the State was reported, has 400 beds reserved for the infections caused by the new variant..
Similar preparations have been made in Mumbai as well, where officials said a couple of private hospitals have also been roped in in case of an Omicron-linked surge.
Also preparing for an eventuality is Max Ventilator Founder Ashok Patel, who points out that the entire supply chain network, including vendors, partners and distributors, are ready to supply any kind of ventilator.
Past lessons
Remembering the ordeal of the second wave, Agra-based Kriti Bhardwaj, who lost her father due to Covid, said: “Hospital staff across the Capital and NCR weren’t telling (us) about bed availability. In some cases we heard about hospitals taking money for allotment of beds. Otherwise, they were keeping patients on hold.”
After a wait of four days, Bhardwaj finally arranged for a bed at the Global Rainbow Hospital in Agra, thanks to an aunt in the medical profession. Faridabad-based Anjaney Mishra, a distributor of medical items, also recounts how he could not get hospital admission for himself and four members of the family. “That was a very fragile time for all of us,” he says.
As more suspected Omicron cases are placed under quarantine in different States, healthcare administrators are gearing up to be better prepared this time around.
(With inputs from Rutam Vora in Ahmedabad)