With COVID-19 cases showing a sharp decline, the Puducherry Health Department will soon start relieving some private medical colleges from treating novel coronavirus infected patients and retain the Indira Gandhi Government Medical College and Research Institute as the main treatment centre.
Saturday saw the second biggest drop in cases with 128 new admissions registered in the Union Territory. Of the new admissions, the Puducherry region recorded 103 cases. In the last 24 hours, two COVID- 19 deaths were reported while 187 patients were discharged from various hospitals. Currently, there are 3,912 active cases, including 2,335 under home quarantine.
So far, the Union Territory has reported 586 deaths, 34,112 total cases and as many as 29,614 patients have been treated and discharged.
‘Guard to be maintained’
“We are seeing a sharp decline in the last few days. But we are not going to lessen the guard or withdraw any healthcare workers from COVID-19 related work. However, we will slowly relieve private medical colleges from treating infected patients,” S. Mohan Kumar, Director of Health and Family Welfare Services, told The Hindu .
After a sharp drop in new admissions and an increase in recovery rate, around 40% of beds are vacant at the medical college. In the coming days, PHCs will stop referring patients to private institutes. But these institutes would have to maintain a minimum bed strength for treating COVID-19 patients in case of a resurgence in persons getting infected, he said.
“In the present context, we think our medical college, along with Jipmer, can handle the new admissions. The virus is still around and so people will have to be very cautious, especially during the festival season. If people continue to observe protocols, we can get very good results in the next 60 days,” Mr. Kumar said.
The Director said there would not be any let down in the number of samples being tested per day. The numbers would be maintained around 4,000 a day, he said, adding that the department would be touching the 3-lakh mark soon with respect to the number of people tested.
In 24 hours alone, 3,865 people got tested for the virus, taking the total number of those screened in the Union Territory to 2,85,824. The recovery rate had increased to 86. 81 %, he said.
