The Telangana Health department is bracing up to admit more COVID-19 patients at government hospitals. State Health Minister Eatala Rajender has directed officials to make available five hospitals in Hyderabad to treat and quarantine COVID-19 patients in a week’s time.
The occupancy of regular beds, beds with oxygen supply, and beds in ICUs is increasing. The total bed occupancy in government and private hospitals has increased by three folds from March first week. From March 1 to 9, a maximum of 1,100 beds were occupied by COVID patients. It increased to over 3,500 in the past four days, clearly indicating rising demand for COVID-19 treatment. Most of the people are opting for private hospitals.
Nature Cure Hospital, Government General and Chest Hospital, Nizamia Tibbi Hospital, Ayurveda Hospital, and Sir Ronald Ross Institute of Tropical and Communicable Diseases (Fever Hospital) are the five hospitals which would be made available in seven days. This is in addition to the facilities available at Gandhi Hospital and other health facilities. Besides this, Mr Rajender said that they would resume providing COVID-19 treatment at all the hospitals where the services were provided last year.
COVID wards would be arranged at headquarters of 33 districts. He has directed officials to provide doctors, nurses, sanitation workers, patient care providers, medicines, at the hospitals. The tragic situations where people ran out of money to pay for COVID treatment in private hospitals are still fresh in people’s minds. Mr Rajender has warned managements of private hospitals not to cash in on the fear of people. He has directed them to charge fees according to conditions imposed by the government.
