Around 12.30 p.m. on Saturday, the display board outside the COVID-19 ward at Lok Nayak Hospital flashed 240 vacant ICU beds and around 746 vacant oxygen-supported beds of a total of 1,750 beds in the hospital.
With the dip in daily cases in the national capital, the crowds outside the hospital have reduced now.
While ambulances and patients in private cars kept coming to the hospital every few minutes, families of those already admitted said that the admission process had not been difficult this week.
Laxmi, a resident of Najafgarh, got her 60-year-old mother admitted to the hospital five days ago.
Ensuring facilities
“My mother’s oxygen saturation had dropped to 50 and we had to rush her to the hospital. Thankfully, the scenario was not as bad as what we were hearing till a couple of weeks back. We could admit her to the hospital easily. The hospital is ensuring that we get to do video calls and even if we want to drop a few things for her, facilities have been made to give it at the designated counters. While most of the times we return at night, at times, we stay back as the tents here are well-managed with coolers, etc.,” said Ms. Laxmi.
Brij Bhushan, an East Delhi resident who had to admit his 13-year-old niece at the hospital said, “The situation is no longer dire as earlier. The display board itself is the biggest proof of that. There are so many vacant beds now. Even when we got our niece to the hospital, the process was completed quite smoothly.”
With rows of vacant ambulances outside Ram Manohar Lohia hospital, drivers said that the situation had improved immensely as compared to a couple of weeks ago when they were on a 24-hour duty due to the high demand.
Rajveer Singh, an ambulance driver waiting outside the hospital said, “The scenario is much better now. These days, we only get 3-4 calls on a given day. When the oxygen crisis happened in the city, we were on duty for 24 hours and the pressure was immense. The rush was so bad that it was difficult to get the patients admitted. However, things have improved a lot now and patients get admitted quite easily.”
