Private hospitals in Calcutta, many of whom were reluctant to allocate too many beds for patients infected with the coronavirus, are changing plans as the demand for Covid beds continues to soar.

Some hospitals, which a couple of months back had less than 10 beds for treating Covid-19 patients, are dedicating an entire building or several wings of their facilities to such cases. Officials of the hospitals said the change in stand was prompted by a growing realisation that they would now get only a few patients with other ailments.

The state government at a meeting on Wednesday asked private hospitals to increase the number of beds set aside for Covid patients by 20 per cent. The hospitals were also asked to set up more satellite units for asymptomatic Covid patients or those with mild symptoms.

Officials of a number of private several hospitals said they were earlier reluctant to add beds for Covid treatment because they were apprehensive that other patients would be scared away.

Belle Vue Clinic had eight beds initially for Covid treatment. Now, it has 99 beds.

AMRI Hospitals Dhakuria had initially 40 beds for Covid treatment. Now, it has 78 beds. All Covid beds are now in Annexe II, which is used only for coronavirus treatment except for high-end neuro and orthopedic surgeries.

“Before Covid-19 struck, 60 per cent of the indoor patients would have planned admissions, coming through the outpatient department. The rest were emergency admissions. Now, there are barely any planned admissions,” said Sudipta Mitra, the chief executive of Peerless Hospital. “Beds will remain empty if we do not expand the capacity for Covid treatment.”

The hospital has eight wings, three of which with 100 beds together are dedicated to Covid treatment.

Mitra said they were planning to set aside one more wing for Covid treatment following the government’s request.

“Earlier, hospitals were apprehensive about losing non-Covid patients. But over the past few months, mostly Covid patients are coming to get admitted. So, hospitals are increasing the number of beds for Covid treatment to remain viable,” said Rupak Barua, the president of the Association of Hospitals of Eastern India, an umbrella organisation for private hospitals in Bengal.

The RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences has increased the number of Covid beds from 52 to 88.

“A large number of patients diagnosed with Covid are actually patients who came for other procedures…. Such patients come back for their procedures after recovering from Covid after two weeks or so. Moreover, a few non-Covid patients are not turning up for fear of contracting the virus,” said R. Venkatesh, regional director, east, Narayana Health, which runs the Mukundapur hospital.