Hyderabad:Gandhi Hospital runs out of ICU beds

Hyderabad: The influx of critical Covid patients has been so intense that within a few days, all the 619 hospital beds meant for ICU/ventilator care at Gandhi hospital are filled while a few more are left at Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences (TIMS), Gachibowli.

There are about 1,100 beds at Gandhi Hospital that are equipped with oxygen and ventilators and this is for the first time in Telangana that a hospital has over 600 patients on ventilator support.

Health Minister Eatala Rajender urged the management of private hospitals and doctors at government hospitals to ensure critical patients in their facilities are provided treatment locally, rather than referring them to Gandhi Hospital.

After providing treatment, when a patients medical condition worsens, they are immediately referred to Gandhi Hospital by the managements of private hospitals and even government hospitals in districts. Strict orders have been issued to doctors at government hospitals to refer such patients to Area or District Hospitals that are equipped with ventilators. Private hospitals too should avoid referring because there is every possibility that the critical patient might die on the way to Gandhi Hospital. Please try to provide oxygen or ventilator support to critical patients locally, he urged.

To ensure the availability of more beds, the State government had recently permitted about 1,038 private hospitals in Telangana to treat Covid patients. The Health Department is supplying Remdesivir and oxygen to such small and medium private hospitals.