Private hospitals must further increase the Covid bed count as the number of people getting infected is increasing rapidly, senior state government officials told private healthcare units at a meeting on Wednesday.
The hospitals said they would ramp up their Covid bed strength but added that increasing the count beyond a point could be difficult. The demand for non-Covid beds was equally high, officials of the hospitals said.
“We have asked the hospitals to increase the number of Covid beds. We also asked them to open satellite facilities,” health secretary Narayan Swaroop Nigam said.
Officials of the health department pointed out at the meeting that the number of Covid beds in private hospitals across Bengal had come down from 5,000 during the epidemic’s peak last year to 4,000 now.
“We were told to bridge this gap and add 1,000 beds as soon as possible,” said Pradip Tondon, the CEO of Belle Vue Clinic.
The meeting, chaired by home secretary H.K. Dwivedi, was held at the Calcutta Municipal Corporation’s headquarters on SN Banerjee Road.
Several private hospitals in the city have increased the number of Covid beds over the past few weeks but the bed crisis is still there.
Officials at AMRI Hospitals, Belle Vue, Medica Superspecialty Hospital, RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences and Peerless Hospital said all their Covid beds were occupied on Wednesday evening.
Belle Vue has 167 Covid beds, 37 of which are in the critical care unit. Medica Superspecialty Hospital has 160 Covid beds, 90 of which are critical care ones.
“We had 30 Covid beds a fortnight back. We added 130 beds within 15 days, but even that is not sufficient, it seems,” said Alok Roy, the chairman of Medica. The hospital had 230 beds at the peak of the epidemic last year.
“It is difficult for us to further increase Covid beds immediately because the pressure of non-Covid patients is also very high. They have waited for long to undergo surgeries and procedures. We cannot suddenly deny them the opportunity to undergo the procedures,” Roy said.
“We have 111 beds now. We will increase it to 121 by the end of this week. We can further increase it to 128, if required. But increasing the count beyond that will be a challenge because the demand for non-Covid beds is very high,” said R. Venkatesh, regional head (east), Narayana Health, which owns the RN Tagore hospital.
The state government officials also asked the private hospitals to open satellite units where Covid patients with mild to moderate symptoms can stay,
While a few hospitals like AMRI and RN Tagore have already opened satellite units, some others like Belle Vue are having discussions with hotels for opening such facilities.
