Lucknow: Govt directs hospitals to reserve few beds for COVID-19 patients

Lucknow: With the ongoing rise of COVID-19 cases in the country, the Lucknow state government is taking precautions and measures to cope with the situation if another Pandemic hit the city again.

The government had asked all the hospitals in the state to have extra beds for COVID-19 patients. 

According to a senior health official, private or government hospitals had to suffer a shortage of beds during the pandemic as the arrangements of the beds were done in a rush. Hence, advance preparations have been initiated and hospitals have been asked to mark few beds for COVID-19 patients.

The small step to mark a few beds for the COVID-19 patients at all the hospitals will initially make over 900-beds for the COVID-19 patients in the state and could be used immediately in an emergency. All the private and government medical colleges have also received notice to create COVID-19 wards within a few days.

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A review meeting was held by CMO, Dr Manoj Agrawal with the health personnel of all the hospitals in the state on Thursday.

As per multiple media reports, It has been reported that the fourth wave of COVID-19 could hit the country soon. COVID positive reports have increased in 17 districts of India and the numbers are rising each day.

As of Sunday, six states and Union territories -- Maharashtra (14,858), Kerala (14,518), Karnataka (3,387), Delhi (2,247), Haryana (1,548), Tamil Nadu (1,231) and Uttar Pradesh (1,087) -- have over 1,000 active coronavirus cases.

The top 10 states and Union territories of concern in terms of an increasing positivity rate are Kerala, Mizoram, Goa, Maharashtra, Delhi, Haryana, Sikkim, Chandigarh, Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh.

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Dr Agrawal told HT, "So if a hospital has 50 beds, they may keep five beds aside for patients who may come for some other treatment but test positive for Covid-19 and need hospitalisation."

Dr Abhishek Shukla, secretary-general, Association of International Doctors said "Since less than one percent of active cases need hospitalisation at present, hence allotting 5 or 10 beds will ensure that if a patient tests positive for Covid-19 they get immediate treatment without having to rush for referral and admission."

"First of all, we have not found any new variant of concern. India now has BA.4 and BA.5, in addition to BA.2, which have slightly higher transmissibility as compared to the other Omicron sub-lineages," Dr N K Arora, chairman of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) told PTI.

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"There is another dimension to it and that is, the infection is limited to metros and big cities with a high population density. The important thing is that most of the people who are getting infected these days are immunised and have a common cold and a mild influenza-like illness. There is no need to panic, but one must remember that Covid is very much around us and we need to adhere to Covid-appropriate behaviour and particularly, avoid crowded places and also make masks an integral part of our day-to-day living," said Dr Arora.

"So the rise in the number of cases is not a cause of worry at the moment. But we should not let our guard down and must focus on aggressive testing so as not to miss out on any emerging variant." said AIIMS Director Dr Randeep Guleria.