The hospital wound up the annexe facility at Ramlila ground last week. Archive With new Covid-19 cases in the city dipping and hospital admissions reducing further still, Delhi’s biggest Covid facility, Lok Nayak hospital, has been scaling down the number of beds earmarked for treatment of the viral infection. From more than 2,000 beds on the main campus and 500 beds at a temporary facility at Ramlila ground, the hospital now has only 250 Covid beds. The number is likely to be further reduced by the end of the month, according to hospital officials.
The hospital wound up the annexe facility at Ramlila ground last week. The temporary centre was set up after a crisis for oxygen support and ICU beds during the second wave in April-May last year in the city.
“We have closed the centre at Ramlila Maidan. Now we have 250 beds, including ICU, oxygen, as well as ward beds, in the main hospital dedicated to Covid patients. There are also beds earmarked for pregnant women who might have the infection. If anybody comes to the hospital with Covid, we are fully prepared to treat them,” said Dr Suresh Kumar, medical director, Lok Nayak hospital.
He added, “Now, we have no patients. We will wait and see what happens till March 31. If the situation remains the same, we may further scale down the Covid beds.”
Of the remaining 250 beds at the hospital, 100 are in the intensive care unit, including 50 beds with ventilator support, and all the 250 beds have oxygen support.
Although the occupancy had been very high, with even two to three patients sharing beds in the hospital emergency at the peak of the second wave last summer, it remained fairly low during the January omicron variant-driven surge.
Only 750 of the over 2,000 beds were earmarked for Covid patients during the third wave, with the rest of the beds being utilised for other services. Most services, including outpatient clinics and planned surgeries, were not hampered for more than a couple of weeks even at the peak of the omicron wave.
Not only Lok Nayak hospital, there are several other big hospitals in the city that have seen the last of their Covid patients.
There are zero Covid patients at Delhi government’s Guru Teg Bahadur and Rajiv Gandhi hospitals as well. There are no Covid patients at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences too, according to the government’s Delhi Corona app where information is updated by the hospitals every day.
There were 129 fresh Covid-19 cases reported on average each day during the last week, with the incidence reducing gradually from over 200 to 148 on Thursday. Only 34 persons are in city hospitals as per Thursday’s bulletin.
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