Bengaluru added 16,662 fresh Covid cases on Friday, taking the city’s total active caseload to 1,49,624. Delhi’s active tally is nearly 1 lakh while in Mumbai, it is 81,174.
BENGALURU: With nearly 1.5 lakh Covid active cases, Bengaluru Urban has become the district with the highest active caseload in the country, way ahead of Pune (1,16,602) as of Friday. The surging count triggered calls from public health experts for establishment of temporary care centres where patients can be stabilised at early states as any increase in severity can overwhelm the city’s health infrastructure.
Bengaluru added 16,662 fresh Covid cases on Friday, taking the city’s total active caseload to 1,49,624. Delhi’s active tally is nearly 1 lakh while in Mumbai, it is 81,174.
They will have 2,000 ICU beds and around 1,000 ventilators
The State government will set up makeshift or modular hospitals to create 2,000 ICU beds with about 1,000 ventilators within 15 days while Karnataka has sought permission from the Centre to import Remdesivir directly, Health Minister K. Sudhakar said on Friday.
Acknowledging shortage of oxygen beds, ICU beds and ventilators, especially in Bengaluru, the Health Minister told reporters that these makeshift hospitals of about 300 beds each will come up in the premises of tertiary hospitals, such as Victoria, Bowring, Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases, Jayadeva, Kidwai and Nimhans. “Each makeshift hospital will have about 100 ventilator beds.”
Breathless in Bengaluru
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ICU and oxygenated beds are in short supply, forcing patients to run from one hospital to the other or spend hours together in the ambulance
With no ICU beds available in the city, both covid and non-covid patients are running from one hospital to another hospital and are waiting for eight to 12 hours to get an ICU bed with oxygen. The patients with breathlessness and no
oxygen available are worsening their condition during this waiting period and are struggling for their lives.
Rathnamma (name changed), 68, whose family struggled for over 12 hours to find her a bed with an oxygen facility said that she had a fever for three days and had taken the covid test. The results came on Sunday by then her fatigue had increased and her saturation had started to drop. Her relative, Asha (name changed) said that after multiple calls to the
Karnataka : Bengaluru : 15/07/2020 Minister for Medical Education Dr K Sudhakar
While private hospitals have been requested to reserve 50% of beds for COVID-19 patients, most have reserved only 15-20%, Health Minister K. Sudhakar said, warning them of strict action.
“The government will consider it as a serious lapse,” he told reporters. “I once again appeal to private hospitals to cooperate with the government.”
Dr. Sudhakar said 400 doctors have been transferred from the Medical Education Department to the Health Department to handle the situation and the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases has been kept reserved for SARI and ILI related cases.
The Minister said only critical non-COVID-19 patients, who need hospitalisation, should be treated in hospitals and private hospitals can arrange Covid Care Centres at hotels. The Technical Advisory Committee will submit a report on increasing cases. The report will be handed over to the Chief Minister and he will tak