The industrial hub of Punjab, Ludhiana, which has now become the biggest corona-hotspot, is critically short of COVID care beds for the patients who are in critical condition. From the past two days, Ludhiana is reporting maximum coronavirus cases and deaths in Punjab but, only has 76 dedicated beds for Level 3 patients which require critical/intensive care.
According to the status report of the Health Department, of these 76 beds for Level 3 patients, only 6 were available on July 29. Ludhiana had reported 3,377 COVID cases and 99 deaths till Saturday evening – both maximum for any district in Punjab.
Out of total 761 beds available for COVID care in the district (450 in government facilities and 311 in private), a major chunk — 685 beds — is for Level 1 and Level 2 patients.
Notably, the remaining 76 beds for critical COVID care seem too less for this most densely populated district, which is also a referral centre for patients both from within and outside the state because of the presence of two private medical colleges — the Dayanand Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) and the Christian Medical College and Hospital (CMCH)
There are three government medical colleges in Punjab which are in Patiala, Faridkot and Amritsar. Treatment of patients in these hospitals is free of cost. But beds for Level 3 patients in GMCs were still available in sufficient numbers as on July 29.
In Amritsar, only 30 beds in Level 3 facilities were occupied, while 83 were vacant. In Patiala out of 103 Level 3 beds, 20 were occupied and 83 were vacant. In Faridkot, 21 beds in Level 3 were available. Jalandhar had 71 Level 3 beds available and only 21 occupied, while Mohali had 77 beds available and 19 occupied in Level 3 facilities.
“Patients prefer to get treated in private facilities as they hear about medical negligence incidents at government facilities like bodies being swapped in Amritsar as well as Patiala. A patient died in Faridkot who later turned out to be coronavirus negative. This may be a reason that people are rushing to Ludhiana instead of GMCs,” said Ranjodh Singh, a Ludhiana industrialist, who has been helping in getting Covid-19 victims cremated.
The hospitals in Ludhiana have been struggling to cope. A Youth Akali Dal leader, Gurdeep Singh Gosha, alleged that DMCH had denied treatment to his relative on July 23 midnight as it insisted on the coronavirus test report. The patient, who was complaining of breathlessness, was turned away and died on July 24, Gosha said. “Hospitals should not demand COVID report, but start treatment as per symptoms,” he said.
Also on July 24, a 45-year-old male patient needing critical care could not get a bed in DMCH. The patient was taken to Civil Hospital where he died because of no ventilator. A show-cause notice was issued to DMCH by Civil Surgeon, Ludhiana, and the report has now been sent to Director, Health Services, for necessary action.
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Dr Rajesh Bagga, Civil Surgeon, Ludhiana said, “On July 24, all Level 3 beds in DMCH were occupied. We have asked the tertiary care hospitals to increase beds in Level 3 facilities now as we have enough in Level 1 and 2. We plan to increase Level 3 beds to up to 1,000 as patients are coming from across the state and even from Himachal, J&K as well.”
But so far it seems, the state government’s focus was only on Level 1 and Level 2 facilities where mild and moderate cases are treated.
But in most districts, beds in the Level 3 category are less than 100. Amritsar has a maximum of 113 Level 3 beds. Further, while there are 65 ventilator beds in Amritsar government medical college, 54 in Patiala and 21 in Faridkot, Ludhiana has 32 of them. Health officials admitted that it was high time to boost Level 3 facilities across districts.
Ludhiana on Saturday has reported 166 fresh cases of infection with 10 deaths.