Crisis situations in finding ventilator beds at government and private hospitals in Hyderabad are slowly deepening with each passing day. This is becoming more obvious as people are posting SOS calls on Twitter, calling friends and family members, and requesting information about hospitals where ventilator beds are available.
3 to 4 weeks’ time
Heads of a few major corporate hospitals too, said that they were running out of this resource. Even if they can expand the ventilator bed facility, it would take at least three more weeks to get more ventilators.
Ventilator beds in major government hospitals such as Gandhi and TIMS are full most of the time, and patients are always in the waiting list. In case of District Hospital, King Koti, the availability is changing regularly.
Director of a pharma company Sai Charan Chikkulla is helping people find COVID beds. When he tried to find a ventilator bed for a family on Friday night, he had to call around 40 hospitals. “After finally finding a bed, it got occupied in no time. So, we tried at other hospitals,” Mr. Sai said.
He said that even after being confirmed of a bed over phone from private hospitals, getting it is uncertain till the patient reaches the hospital. “In the 20-30 minutes or more it takes for a family to shift a patient to that hospital, another patient in need of ventilator bed might reach the hospital,” he said.
When this reporter called on Friday night, some hospitals said that their ventilator beds were full. After verification, a few Good Samaritans started posting availability along with the time they verified it at.
Professor and nodal officer at Government General and Chest Hospital Dr. M. Narender said that invasive ventilation is used as the last option of improving the oxygen saturation levels when lungs are severely damaged.
Managing Director of KIMS Hospitals Dr. B. Bhaskar Rao said that they had 100 such beds but occupied. “We got 20 more ventilator beds, but those too, are full now. When patients approach us, we take down their details and call them when a bed becomes available,” he said. He too said that they evaluate a patient’s condition to decide whether a patient needs non-invasive ventilation.
HCOO of Care Hospitals, Banjara Hills, Dr. Rahul Medakkar said that around 70 ventilators at their branch were put to use. “We are trying to procure more ventilators. The least time to receive good quality ventilators is not less than three to four weeks,” Dr. Rahul said.
“We cannot move a ventilator just because it is not being used for sometime. A critical patient might need it any time. Besides, specialist doctors like anaesthetists, pulmonologists monitor the ventilators. If 1-2 machines are placed in other rooms,we cannot deploy the specialists for each room. It’s not practical,” a senior doctor said.
