Covid: Scramble for hospital bed not as high as second wave

Bed occupancy has gone up in the past fortnight, but it did not match the occupancy levels during the second wave.: File Picture

SUBHAJOY ROY |  TT  |  16.01.22: The sharp spike in Covid cases over the last fortnight has also led to a rise in hospital admissions but not at the same pace as the surge in cases.

The scramble for hospital beds, which was too common during the second wave last year, has been missing. Families are also remaining calm even if multiple members test positive for Covid.

Doctors and hospital administrators said the criticality of patients admitted in hospitals now was also less. Metro scans how the first fortnight of the current surge has gone.

Bed occupancy status

Bed occupancy has gone up in the past fortnight, but it did not match the occupancy levels during the second wave.

There were 79 Covid patients at Peerless Hospital on Saturday evening, compared to 6 or 7 patients during the last week of December. In the peak of the second wave — when about 22,000 new cases were being reported every day in Bengal like now — all 175 beds were full in the hospital.

“There used to be a queue of ambulances outside the emergency during the peak of the second wave. We could admit a new patient only if someone was discharged. In contrast, we have 11 vacant beds now,” Sudipta Mitra, the chief executive officer of Peerless, said on Saturday evening.

MR Bangur Hospital had 234 patients admitted out of 713 Covid beds on Saturday. “During the second wave, we had about 700 patients admitted on almost all days,” said the hospital’s superintendent, Sisir Naskar.

Criticality of patients

The number of patients needing critical care support is much less than the second wave.

Mitra, who is also treating Covid patients, said there were 68 patients in the Covid ward in Peerless and 11 in the critical care unit (CCU). “Only 14 persons in the ward are requiring oxygen support. During the second wave, almost everyone in the ward needed oxygen support. Worse cases were shifted to the CCU,” he said.

At the Rabindranath Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences (RTIICS), 49 patients were in the Covid ward on Saturday and 39 in the CCU. “Only 23 of our 88 admitted patients are requiring oxygen. This is less than 40 per cent of the number who needed oxygen during the second wave,” said an official of RTIICS.

Huge jump in testing

The very high transmissibility of the omicron variant could be the reason behind the massive jump in testing, felt doctors.

On December 28, 32,016 Covid tests had been done in the state. On Friday 72,725 tests were conducted. “We have tested 9-10 members of the same family as all of them had fever and other symptoms,” said a senior official of a hospital.

Resources crisis

The current wave is a battle to have caregivers available in hospitals. “We had about 120 doctors, nurses and healthcare workers down with Covid late December. Most of them have joined. But now there are another 130 people who are down with Covid,” said R Venkatesh, the regional director of Narayana Health, the owners of RTIICS.

Some people are getting better while others are falling sick, leaving hospitals almost always short of full strength, said the hospital’s administrator.

Calmer families

A south Calcutta businessman had kept an oxygen cylinder at home last year when the daily cases surged. He was afraid that he would not find a hospital bed for a family member who had tested positive. This time, he has not made any such arrangement despite multiple family members testing positive.

Families are not reacting with panic this time as only mild symptoms are witnessed in an overwhelming majority of people. “Do not panic but do not drop caution because the virus may behave differently in different people,” said a doctor.