One private hospital had 68 Covid patients waiting to get admitted on Sunday. Many of them were waiting for three days and were turned away by other private hospitals because of lack of beds.

At another private hospital, more than 50 Covid patients have enlisted their names, hoping to get a call for admission.

A third hospital has stopped maintaining a waiting list of Covid patients because most of them will have to wait indefinitely.

Senior officials of private hospitals said they were not taking calls from even friends and relatives, fearing there would be a request for a Covid bed.

The crisis of Covid beds, which had started around the beginning of this month, has become severe and relatives of patients are desperately calling up hospitals but are unable to get a bed. The situation is the same at most government hospitals too, said relatives of several patients.

A number of private hospitals have increased their Covid bed counts but those are inadequate given the steep surge in numbers, an official of the state government said.

Adding to their problems, many private hospitals have long queues of non-Covid patients waiting for planned surgeries. Officials of these hospitals said they would start deferring such admissions in a day or two so that more beds could be set aside for Covid patients.

A 50-year-old resident of Dhakuria tested positive for Covid on Sunday afternoon. His relatives called up two private hospitals in south Calcutta and were told that no bed was available. They also called up a government hospital but got the same response.

“My brother’s oxygen saturation went down to 91. (Doctors advise immediate hospitalisation if the figure drops below 94). He has high fever and is suffering from respiratory distress. After being told by three hospitals that there was no bed, we took him to a private hospital where we know a senior official,” the patient’s brother said.

Doctors at the hospital, however, told the family that the patient had to stay in the emergency ward till a Covid bed was vacant.

AMRI Hospitals Dhakuria has 120 Covid beds, compared with around 10 it had in April last year. All beds are occupied and the hospital had till a couple of days ago a long list of enrolled patients waiting to be admitted.

“It took us almost six months to increase the number of Covid beds to 98 last year. But this time, we increased the count to 120 in just 15 days. We have stopped maintaining a waiting list and are admitting patients against discharge,” said an official of the hospital.

Medica Superspecialty Hospital increased the number of Covid beds from 160 to 180 on Sunday. “We have requested the state government to hand over some of its facilities like a stadium which we can turn into treatment centres,” Medica chairman Alok Roy said.

“Last year, many asymptomatic patients were requesting admission. This time they are staying at home. However, the number of infected people is so high that the number of those needing admission has gone up,” said Roy.

On April 16 and 17, last year, Bengal had only 144 and 162 active Covid-19 cases, respectively.

On April 16 and 17, this year, the figures stood at 41,047 and 45,300.

“The number of beds is being increased and we are reaching the level witnessed during the peak of the epidemic last year. But this time, the surge is already many times more compared with last year and the virus is spreading fast,” an official in the state government said.

Belle Vue Clinic has around 170 Covid beds, which is 86 per cent of its total bed strength. “We can’t increase it further because the rest of the beds are for children and emergencies,” said Pradip Tondon, the CEO of Belle Vue.

Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals said it would increase the number of Covid beds from 56 to 100 this week.

Case count

The number of active Covid cases in Bengal rose by 4,338, on Sunday to 49,638. The state recorded 4,053 recoveries and 8,419 new infections during the day, resetting the record for the highest intra-day infection count yet again While Calcutta recorded 2,197 new infections, North 24-Parganas reported 1,860.