Facing a shortage of beds amid a sharp rise in the number of Covid patients, UT Adviser Manoj Parida said that Sector 45 Civil Hospital has been made operational for covid patients from Saturday evening. Chandigarh’s Covid tally shot up to 49,312 on as it recorded 870 new cases on Saturday. The city now has 8505 active cases.
According to officials, this decision was taken after no ICU bed was vacant at Government Multi-Specialty Hospital, Sector 16; Dedicated Covid Hospital in Sector 48, and three of the seven private hospitals offering Covid care. Those available at other hospitals are mostly reserved for paediatric, surgical and other critical patients.
With more Covid patients getting critical, the UT Administration had recently sought the immediate intervention of the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for proper utilisation of the infrastructure of the PGI.
In a recent letter to the ministry, the UT stated that it was trying to tackle the crisis by enhancing the capacity of Government Multi-Specialty Hospital (GMSH), Sector 16, and the Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Sector 32, and setting up mini-Covid care centres with the help of social organisations, yet the help of the PGI was urgently required. The Administration had requested the Union Ministry to direct the PGI to enhance the number of Covid beds to at least 700, as they have nearly 2,000 beds.
Medical experts said the GMCH and the GMSH had increased their bed capacity to 564 by overstretching their resources. Since the PGI had stopped OPD services and elective surgeries, the institute should have enhanced its capacity to at least 1,000 Covid beds with 30 per cent ventilators and oxygen attached with the remaining beds, they said.