A crisis of critical care beds for Covid patients is resulting in many patients with severe symptoms being refused admission or treated in general wards where their condition is deteriorating to a stage beyond recovery, said doctors and health officials.

On May 11, 2020, a couple of months into the pandemic, Bengal had 907 critical care beds for Covid patients across the state.

On May 11, 2021, the state had 2,711 critical care beds for such patients, almost three times the count a year before but the crisis, too, has intensified by many notches.

Doctors and health officials said the virus had become more transmissible and was causing severe disease in many more patients compared with last year.

A man in his 50s from Salt Lake, who has several comorbidities, had tested positive for Covid and was taken to a private hospital in the township on Monday night. Doctors in the emergency ward said he needed a critical care bed. All ICU beds at the hospital were occupied.

“We called up a private hospital in New Town and were told that one ICU bed was available. However, it took us about an hour to hire an ambulance and take him there. When we reached the hospital, the authorities said a patient had become critical and was allotted the bed,” a relative of the man said.

The patient was kept at a nursing home in New Town and finally, on Wednesday evening, he was shifted to an ICU bed at a nursing home in Maniktala.

Many private hospitals said they had increased their ICU strength much more than they did during the first wave of the epidemic last year but the numbers are inadequate.

AMRI Hospitals Dhakuria had 99 Covid beds during the peak of infections last year, of which 32 were ICU beds. This year, the hospital has 170 Covid beds, of which 50 are ICU beds.

“All critical care beds have been occupied over the past 10 days and we are turning down requests from other hospitals to transfer critical patients to our facility,” said an official of the hospital.

Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals had around 20 ICU beds for Covid patients last year. Now it has around 80 but there is still a need for more, said an official of the Bypass hospital.

The RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences had 45 critical care beds for Covid patients last year. This year they have 130.

“We are getting 10 to 15 requests daily from small nursing homes and hospitals to transfer patients to our critical care unit,” said R. Venkatesh, regional director, east, Narayana Health, which runs the Mukundapur hospital.

Some hospitals said the crisis of critical care beds had reached such an extent that patients in need of high-end critical care support were being treated in general wards with less advanced equipment. As a result, their condition is often deteriorating to a stage beyond recovery.

Medica Superspecialty Hospital has around 25 extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machines, which pump blood to a heart-lung machine that removes carbon dioxide and sends oxygen-filled blood back to the body. This machine is used to provide support to extremely critical Covid patients.

“There are many young patients who need ECMO support. But the demand is so high that there is a waiting list of seven to eight patients,” a doctor at the hospital said on Wednesday.

Physician Amitabha Saha, who is part of Medica’s Covid treatment team, said: “Patients on general beds are deteriorating much faster compared with last year. Also, we have seen mainly those who are not vaccinated are becoming critical, which is why many young patients are requiring ICU and ventilation support.”

Physician Chandramouli Bhattacharya, who treats Covid patients at Peerless Hospital, attributed the rise in the number of critical patients to higher transmissibility of the virus.

“Now, the number of people getting infected is five times more compared with last year. As a result, the number of critical patients, too, is more than last year. It’s about faster spread of the virus and severity of the disease,” said Bhattacharya, who now has 26 Covid patients admitted under him.

“A number of younger patients are turning critical. One reason could be they have not been vaccinated but are exposed more to the virus because they have to step out for work,” said Bhattacharya.

Covid count

Bengal on Wednesday recorded 20,377 new infections, 135 deaths and 19,231 recoveries.

Of the 135 deaths, 44 were reported from Calcutta and 27 from North 24-Parganas. While Calcutta recorded 3,989 new infections, North 24-Parganas reported 4,091.