The state health department has decided to requisition Covid beds at private hospitals, which will be reserved for patients referred by the government.
An order issued on Saturday said 1,387 beds at 24 private hospitals across the state would be taken over for the treatment of Covid patients. Most of the hospitals are in Calcutta and North 24-Parganas, the two worst-affected districts in the state.
Some of the hospitals where beds have been requisitioned include Peerless Hospital, RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences, Fortis Hospital, CMRI, Belle Vue Clinic and Columbia Asia in Calcutta; ILS Hospital in Dum Dum; Charnock Hospital in New Town; and Megacity in Barasat, North 24-Parganas. The requisitioned beds will be separate from the Covid beds the hospitals have to set aside.
The West Bengal Clinical Establishment Regulatory Commission has asked the private hospitals to reserve at least 60 per cent of their total beds for Covid patients.
“The government-requisitioned beds will be separate from the Covid beds that the hospitals have to create for patients who will approach the hospitals directly for admission,” said retired judge Ashim Banerjee, the commission’s chairperson.
“If a hospital has 100 beds and the government requisitions 20 beds, it has to reserve 60 per cent of the remaining 80 beds for Covid patients. Thus, altogether 68 beds will be reserved for Covid at the hospital, of which 20 will be set aside for the treatment of patients referred by the government,” Banerjee said.
“The way the demand for beds is rising, we felt that we needed to augment the number of beds. Patients on government-requisitioned beds will not have to pay. The state government will reimburse the hospitals the cost of their treatment. A patient can get the benefit only if the government refers him or her to any of the hospitals where beds have been requisitioned,” a health department official said.
The government had introduced the system last year but the requisitioned beds were gradually released after Covid cases started falling.
Patients whose family members approach the health department for admission are usually allotted government-requisitioned beds.
The department has requisitioned 30 beds (including 10 critical care beds) each at Peerless, RN Tagore, Belle Vue, CMRI and Medica. Twenty-five beds (including five critical care beds) have been requisitioned at Fortis Hospital.
The department has also requisitioned 50 beds (including 20 critical care ones) at Charnock Hospital, 21 beds (including seven critical care ones) at ILS Dum Dum, 50 beds (including 25 critical care and 20 high-dependency ones) at Techno Global Barrackpore and 50 beds (including 12 critical care ones) at Megacity Barasat. The order, issued on Saturday, came into immediate effect.
Despite most private hospitals increasing their Covid bed strength over the past few weeks, the crisis has not been resolved as cases are increasing sharply every day.
Case count
The number of active Covid-19 cases in Bengal rose by 7,425 on Sunday, to 88,800. The state recorded 15,889 new infections, resetting the record for the highest intra-day number yet again, and logged 8,407 recoveries during the day. Calcutta reported 3,779 new infections and North 24-Parganas 3,140.
