Telangana: Hospitals run out of beds even as Covid cases see a steep increase

As many as 83 people who attended a funeral in Hyderabad recently were infected with Covid-19. Another 40 people who went to a pub in the city got infected with the infection.

The Covid-19 situation in Hyderabad is turning alarming with top corporate hospitals are running out of beds. The sudden spurt in the positive cases has resulted in a shortage of anti-viral drug Remdesivir.

The State Government has swung into action has centralised distribution of Remdesivir, making the injections available directly to the hospitals.

Telangana Govt's advice on the injection

It asked the doctors in the private sector to administer the injection rationally. It asserts that only 3-5 per cent of the patients need the injection and that it should not be used randomly and indiscriminately.

Anxious relatives of patients are running from one hospital to another, seeking beds with oxygen supply and ICU beds for their kin. Though the government has allowed all the private hospitals with 10 beds and above to treat the Covid patients, a handful of corporate hospitals are in a huge demand.

“If one person is infected, the entire family is getting infected as the virus has turned virulent. The State reported 4,446 new positive cases on Friday. The positivity rate doubled in six months,” G Srinivasa Rao, Director of Telangana Public Health Department, has said.

He cautioned that virus has undergone mutations several hundred times. “It is spreading fast and may even be transmitted through aerosols,” he said.

“The virus has witnessed 2.5-3 lakh mutations in the world and we noticed about 800 mutations in India. Strong mutations are infecting people very fast,” he said.

As the number of cases going up sharply, the Government has decided to convert the Gandhi Hospital as an exclusive Covid facility.

The Government claims that there is no shortage of beds. “The number of beds for Covid patients has doubled to 39,000 beds as on April 16 from about 18,000 in September 2020. We are going to increase the number to 53,500 in the next few weeks,” he said.

Vaccine

With fear psychosis gripping people, thousands of people are making a beeline at the hospitals, seeking to get vaccine doses.

P S Murthy, a retired professor who came for his second dose of Covishield in a private hospital, was asked to come another day. “They said there were no stocks available. I was asked to come another day,” he said.

He is among several hundred people who had returned home without getting the vaccine dose. A good number of them included those who are supposed to take their second dose.

G Srinivasa Rao said the State has stocks of about two lakh doses and would last for a day or two. “We are getting about 2.7 lakh doses in a day,” he said.

The State targets to administer vaccine to about one crore people. “This is important to achieve herd immunity,” he said.

Raja Rao, Superintendent of Gandhi Hospital, said that is impossible to treat a pandemic. “You can only prevent it. You need to wear masks and observe physical distance,” he said.

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