Second Covid-19 wave: Lessons from last year in mind, hospitals prepare

Leaves of hospital staff are getting cancelled; call centres in districts are being put into action mode; and stock-taking of PPE suits and oxygen supply is underway. As Covid-19 cases rise in India, states are getting battle-ready.

India registered 53,480 new cases in the last 24 hours, according to data from the ministry of health and family welfare as on March 31 (12:12pm); eight states — Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh — accounted for 84.73 per cent; Maharashtra reported the highest daily new cases at 27,918.

Civic corporations in Maharashtra are ramping up hospital beds even as health minister Rajesh Tope said there was no bed shortage. It’s the availability of ICU beds and ventilators that’s proving to be a challenge; in cities like Aurangabad and Nagpur, occupancy in ICUs and usage of ventilators is at peak levels. Efforts are on to increase availability of beds in all categories.

In Mumbai, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has requisitioned over 2200 beds from 69 private hospitals and taken over the bed management for Covid patients. It is also activating Jumbo Covid centres for isolation and treatment of patients with mild symptoms.

Maharashtra government has also cap­ped the minimum rate for RT-PCR and rapid antigen tests at Rs 500 and Rs 150, respectively.

On Wednesday, on Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s directions, Delhi add­ed 230 ICU beds (about 25 per cent) and 842 normal beds in 33 private hospitals.

Delhi’s biggest Covid facility, the Lok Nayak Hospital (LNJP), currently has 300 beds dedicated for Covid use and about a fifth are occupied. The hospital has 150 ICU beds and plans to add more.

Tamil Nadu health department said that all the Covid care centres previously in use will be revived and measures will be taken to bring down the fatality rate.

In the last seven days, Covid-19 fatality rate in Chennai has been 0.6 per cent, while in Chengalpattu and Thanjavur districts it has been 0.8 per cent and 0.5 per cent, respectively.

West Bengal has decided to dedicate 100 beds in all its medical colleges for Covid use, apart from the government and private hospitals (last time, not all medical colleges were put to Covid use). Rupak Barua, director and group CEO, AMRI Hospitals, said, “The state government (West Bengal) has appealed to private hospitals to gradually ramp up beds according to requirements.”

“Scaling up Covid facilities may not happen as rapidly as it did last year. Hos­pitals would have to wait to discha­rge those who have been admitted,” Harsh Mahajan, president, NAT­HEALTH and founder and chief radiologist, Mahajan Imaging, said.

The positive, however, is there are better ICU and ventilator capacities in the country and medical professionals don't have to go through a learning curve for treating Covid patients.

Ventilator makers such as Max Ventilator are again seeing a fast offloading of the life-saving breathing devices from inventories. Ashok Patel, founder & CEO, Max Ventilators, said, the surge has been evidently sharper in the last week as against the whole of last month. Since the resurgence of cases, Max Ventilator has seen a nearly 40 per cent jump in demand for critical care ICU ventilators, he said. The maximum demand is from states like Maharashtra, Gujarat and Punjab, so far.

PPE kits, oxygen requirements and medicines are also being stocked up. “We have stocked up on PPE kits, high flow oxygen cannula. We can never really prepare for a deluge, but we will do our best,” Shuchin Bajaj, founder and director, Ujala Cygnus group of hospitals, Delhi, said.

Maharashtra is ordering additional doses of Remdesivir and increasing the availability of oxygen; Tamil Nadu hea­l­th department officials, too, said me­d­icines, PPEs, masks, oxygen were being bought while officials in West Bengal government said, stock taking of infrastructure, pipe oxygen, medicat­ion and human resources was being done.

Efforts are also being put in to ensure that there is adequate trained manpower. A Delhi-based private hospital recently asked its staff to cancel leaves from April-end onwards in anticipation of a rise in cases.