Covid Beds Reduces In Govt. Hospitals As Cases Remain low In Delhi

Private hospitals were asked to reduce Covid beds as well

 As Covid cases remain low in the city even after removal of restrictions and opening of schools and colleges, the Delhi government has started cutting down on the number of beds earmarked for such patients.

The government has reduced 2,735 hospital beds and 1,550 ICU beds across eleven of its hospitals, according to an order by Deputy Secretary (Health) Ajay Bisht.

The order states, “In view of decrease in positivity rate of Covid-19 cases in Delhi, the numbers of Covid-19 beds and Covid-19 ICU beds are hereby de-escalated with immediate effect.”

Beds at step-down health centres were reduced by 1,700 from the 2,800 beds created across eight centres during the surge, it said.

Bed strength was increased to 5,650 in Delhi government hospitals at the time of the Covid surge in January 2022 and private hospitals were asked to reserve 40% of their total beds for Covid patients during the first week of the same month.

The number of beds across hospitals was increased to over 12,000 by January second week and to nearly 14,000 by January end by which time the cases had already started going down.

Private hospitals were asked to reduce their Covid bed strength to 10% of their total capacity, including 10% of the ICU beds, from 40% a couple of days ago.

Even at the peak of the current wave, bed occupancy remained low though the number of cases surged to the same level as the previous wave. Hospitalisations peaked at 2,734 on January 19, with hospital occupancy remaining less than 20%.

The Delhi HM said that after the Delta variant-driven wave, the government had prepared over 35,000 beds at hospitals and step-down health centres.

He said less than 15,000 beds were released because hospitalisations were not high.

In comparison, during the previous wave, hospitalisations peaked at 20,142 on May 3 with ICU admissions reaching 5,800 in mid-May.

In the April end, when Delhi continuously reported over 20,000 Covid-19 cases and the government was still in the process of scaling up ICU and oxygen beds and dealing with oxygen shortage, the city at one point completely ran out of ICU beds.