The city has more critical care facilities now than a couple of years ago because of the money hospitals had to spend during the height of the Covid pandemic.
Both government and private healthcare facilities had procured critical care equipment like extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machines, ventilators, bi-paps and high-flow nasal cannulas to treat Covid patients with severe symptoms.
But following a sharp decline in Covid cases, the hospitals are redeploying those equipment, which in turn has led to an increase in the number of critical care beds.
The state health department purchased 1,800 ventilators and hundreds of bi-paps and high-flow nasal cannulas following the outbreak of Covid.
“We are redeploying the equipment to treat non-Covid critical patients,” said an official in the health department.
He said government hospitals in Bengal had around 900 critical care beds before the pandemic struck. “We are increasing the number to 4,500,” the official said.
“Purchasing equipment in bulk has given us the opportunity to set up more critical care facilities.”
In the private health-care sector, too, from big corporate hospitals to small nursing homes, crores of rupees were spent to buy high-end equipment like ECMO machines and ventilators.
Officials of several hospitals said to make use of these equipment and also get return on the investments, they had decided to increase critical care facilities.
Belle Vue Clinic has started work on setting up a 34-bed critical care unit.
“We had bought four ventilators and one ECMO machine during the pandemic. The ventilators will be used in the new unit. We have placed orders for more,” said Pradip Tondon, CEO of Belle Vue.
The AMRI Hospitals group, too, has increased the number of critical care beds and redeployed equipment bought to treat Covid patients.
The hospital chain had spent Rs 4 crore to buy critical care equipment and another Rs 1 crore to pay rentals for hired gadgets.
The hospital had bought two ECMO machines for around Rs 40 lakh each. It had also taken three machines at a monthly rent of Rs 10,000 each.
“We have returned the ECMO machines taken on rent. The ventilators and other equipment are being used to replace old ones and also in new critical care beds," said Rupak Barua, group CEO of AMRI.
The three units of the group — in Dhakuria, Mukundapur and Salt Lake — now have more than 200 critical care beds (for non-Covid patients) together, compared with 160 in the pre-pandemic times.
Despite the addition, Barua said the use of ventilators had gone down from 100 per cent during the peak of the pandemic to around 60 per cent.
Medica Superspecialty Hospital had spent Rs 25 crore to strengthen its critical care facilities during the pandemic. The hospital had around 30 ECMO machines. The ones taken on rent have since been returned but it still has 13.
“Some of these will be redeployed in our upcoming projects, while some others will be used for training,” Medica chairman Alok Roy said.