Amid huge increase in COVID-19 cases, Delhi faces shortage of beds in hospitals

New Delhi: Coronavirus cases are increasing rapidly in the country. India is now second in the world in terms of infection, leaving Brazil behind. Due to the rising cases, the condition of hospitals in Delhi is also deteriorating.

The second wave of COVID-19 has troubled Delhi and a hospital is the only way to save the patients. However, due to the huge surge in caseload, common people are forced to wander for beds in the hospitals, which is a warning sign for the government.

Through the Kejriwal government's Delhi Corona app, ZEE NEWS tried to know the status of COVID-19 beds by calling some hospitals and the results were shocking.

After Lok Nayak Hospital, Delhi's largest COVID-19 dedicated hospital, Rajiv Gandhi Super Specialty Hospital, does not have a single bed for COVID-19 patients available. After calling twice in a row, the hospital staff advised getting information from the Delhi Corona app.

According to this app, out of the 1,177 beds of COVID-19 in Delhi, only 79 beds are vacant. Not only this, when the Zee Media team made a call in those hospitals in which the availability of beds was being shown through this app, then our team did not get any response.

Condition of private hospitals

Things are alarming in Delhi's government hospitals. But the condition of private hospitals is worse. After calling at Batra Hospital in Delhi, it was found that not even a single bed of COVID-19 is available there.

When called, the hospital asks the patients to give their details and wait. It is obvious that in such a situation, the patients are facing a lot of difficulty in finding a hospital for treatment.

At the same time, in the recent meeting, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also said that if the condition of hospitals in Delhi deteriorates i.e. if the number of beds is less then there will be no other solution left with the government except for the lockdown in Delhi.

Now the big question is, who is telling the truth and who is lying? There are also many hospitals in which the Delhi government's app shows the availability of beds. But when you call in the hospital, the hospital responds that the bed is not empty.

On the other hand, private hospitals have also raised concern over the Delhi government's order to reserve 60-199% beds for COVID-19 patients. The Association of Healthcare Providers-India (AHPI), has urged the government to reconsider its decision as the order may put serious non-COVID patients’ life at high risk. 

"By depriving non-COVID patients, like serious head injury from an accident, cardiac arrest, stroke, transplant etc., we may be harming a larger number of patients as compared to saving from COVID, which can be taken care of in any secondary care hospitals. The orders should have provision by which doctor on emergency duty should have the option to admit life-threatening patients rather than denying outright, amounting to imminent death in many cases,” said Dr Girdhar Gyani, Director General, AHPI.

Number of active cases increasing rapidly

The number of active cases in the capital has now reached 43,510. If this continues, the number of active cases in Delhi may reach 50 thousand soon. At the same time, the total number of infected people has reached 7,50,156 so far, of which the number of recoveries is 6,95,210. As many as 11,436 people have died so far.