Coronavirus | All beds set aside for COVID-19 patients to be retained

All beds allocated for COVID-19 patients at designated COVID-19 hospitals, health centres and care centres will be retained to meet any unexpected surge in cases, health officials have said.

According to the data on bed availability, occupancy and vacancy released by the Health Department on Monday, nearly 90% of the beds at COVID-19 hospitals, health centres and care centres in Chennai are vacant.

Among the COVID-19 hospitals, of the 4,833 beds available at government hospitals, 1,375 were occupied and the rest were vacant. A total of 2,967 beds were vacant of the 3,853 beds available at private hospitals in the city. Only 190 of the 1,348 beds at government COVID-19 health centres were occupied, while 3,508 of the 3,779 beds available at private COVID-19 health centres were vacant. At COVID-19 care centres, 10,940 of the 11,076 beds available were vacant. “We will retain all beds at hospitals, health centres and care centres to meet any unexpected surge in cases. We will not take the risk of reducing the number of beds and will continue to be in a state of preparedness. For instance, if COVID-19 care centres with a 300-bed capacity have 20 patients each, we are trying to keep them at the same place so that we can minimise the number of staff — doctors and nurses — needed to manage the patients,” an official said.