Ventilator scarcity in Delhi Hospitals: Centre assures to manage demand

New Delhi: Amid the rising scarcity of ventilators in the private hospitals of the national capital, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Tuesday that it has received no demand at present from the government of Delhi, however, but if it arises, the ministry is in a position to fulfil that adequately.

"We have read reports of crisis in private hospitals, but as present we have received no demand for ventilators from the Delhi government. However, if the demand arises, we are in a position to fulfil it adequately," said Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan during a press briefing.

The ministry said that there is no scarcity of ventilator beds in the Central government hospitals.

"We do a daily review of Central government hospitals and as per our assessment, 80 beds in Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, 140 beds in Safdarjang Hospital and 112 beds in All India Institute of Medical Sciences are still vacant," Bhushan added.

Delhi, which currently has the second highest number of new Covid-19 cases in the country and the third highest number of virus-related deaths, according to the data released by the Union Health Ministry on Monday, is now seeing an increased pressure on its healthcare infrastructure.

Many private hospitals have indicated that they have approached 100 per cent occupancy of ICU beds with ventilators and only a few government hospitals are showing availability of beds with ventilator support for Covid-19 patients.

Speaking on the situation of ventilator scarcity in private hospitals, Bhushan said that one can monitor that through an app (Delhi Corona app) developed by the government of Delhi.

Till Monday evening, the app developed by Delhi government — Delhi Corona — providing Covid-related information showed that 845 of the 1,244 ICU beds with ventilators are occupied.