The surge in dengue cases in the national capital have led to a serious space crunch in Government hospitals with a facility in East Delhi operating a fever clinic from the driver’s room.
To tackle the need of the hour, Deen Dayal Upadhaya hospital has emptied its ortho and eye wards to accommodate patients. When The Pioneer visited hospitals such as DDU, AIIMS, Bara Hindu Rao and Safdarjung, it found over-crowded OPDs and dengue wards with patients; doubling and tripling of beds were also spotted.
Even most of the patients were seen lying in the corridors on the stretchers of these hospitals, who were not accommodated in the dengue wards.
The private hospitals in the meanwhile share the same scenario. According to doctors in private hospitals, the beds under EWS category are running in full capacity. The lok Nayak, Ambedkar, Guru Tegh Bahadur and lal Bahadur hospitals are overcrowded so much that the hospital authorities are left with no other option but to accommodate ill patients wherever they see vacant space.
looking the seriousness of the seasonal crisis, the Hindu Rao hospital is going to add 75 beds from Thursday onwards. At present, the hospital has over 500 dengue patients already admitted and accommodated by doing doubling and tripling of beds. “We are going to increase 75 beds for the dengue patients who will be accommodated according to the space in the hospital,” said Dr DK Seth Director of Hospital Administration, Hindu Rao.
20 beds will also be increased at Kasturba Hospital, Dr Seth added.
At Deen Dayal Hospital, separate dengue wards have been created to accommodate the patients, the hospital authorities are utilising 200 beds allocated for disaster. “Fever clinics have been opened in the isolation near the emergency and have emptied Eye and Ortho wards to accommodate dengue patients,” said Dr Savita Babbar, Medical Superintendent at Deen Dayal Hospital. 17-year-old Rani who hails from a poor family and cannot afford huge amount of money for the medication is getting dengue treatment at Deen Dayal Upadhya hospital and sharing the bed with another patient. Her mother, Shusheela said, “Due to the lack of beds in DDU hospital, my daughter is sharing the bed. I shifted my daughter to DDU hospital. At least my daughter is receiving the treatment.”
At AIIMS, critically ill dengue patients are being treated on stretchers in corridors due to absence of beds. “We are giving treatment to critically ill patients suffering from dengue on stretchers. We have no other option...The ICUs are full and we can’t transfer them to other hospital as their condition are critical,” said a senior doctor at AIIMS.