Reserve 40% of beds in private hospitals for Covid-19 patients: Delhi govt

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The Delhi government on Tuesday directed all private hospitals and nursing homes in the national capital having a bed capacity of 50 or more, to reserve at least 40% of their total beds for Covid-19 patients.

The order, released on Tuesday evening, said the decision was taken in view of Omicron variant of the coronavirus leading a surge in fresh infections.

“…The keepers of all private hospitals and nursing homes having total bed capacity of 50 beds or more are directed to reserve at least 40% of their total bed capacity (40% of ward bed capacity and 40% of lCU bed capacity) for Covid patients,” the order said.

Delhi has been witnessing an uptick in Covid infections over the last two weeks, with the number of cases jumping to 5,481 on Tuesday—positivity of 8.37%–from Monday’s 4,099 infections, which resulted in a positivity rate of 6.46%. On December 31, the positivity rate in the city was 2.44%.

According to Delhi government’s covid dashboard, Delhi has a total of 21,701 Covid beds across the city. Of these, 1,313 were occupied as of Tuesday, with 20,388 still available. Of the total vacant beds, 7,945 beds with oxygen support and 1,321 ventilator beds were available.

A senior official of the Delhi government’s health department said the city has entered the “community spread” stage and under the current circumstances even though the severity of infections are mild, all of the Capital’s resources will have to be made available for patient care.

“The infections might be mild but this variant is still highly infectious and we will need to make provisions for as many beds as we can have to ensure that patients requiring hospital care do not suffer when the cases rise further,” the official said.

Health experts reacted with caution to the latest order. Some said that reserving beds will help, considering the high transmission rate of Omicron, others said reserving beds in the same hospital where other patients were also being treated, will result in greater chances of the virus spreading to non-Covid patients.

Dr Vikas Maurya, a pulmonologist at Fortis Hospital, Shalimar Bagh, said, “The decision is not misdirected because Omicron cases are highly infectious and the way the cases are rising we will need maximum beds. Currently, all the ICU beds at our hospitals are full and even patients that are coming for non-Covid ailments are testing Covid positive. We will need maximum resources.”

Dr JA Jayalal, former president of the Indian Medical Association, said reserving beds in all private hospitals will only lead to greater chances of non-Covid patients being infected with the virus.

“What can be done is reserve some hospitals completely for Covid patients, because this variant is highly infectious and if there is intermixing of Covid and non-Covid patients, the possibility of transmission becomes higher. The focus at present should be on home isolation and home care,” Dr Jayalal said.


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