Overburdened, Kalpana Chawla hospital not to admit new patients

Parveen Arora

Tribune News Service

Karnal, May 1

Beds are full, treatment and oxygen are being administered even on stretchers and doctors, along with staff members, are working overtime to treat the patients. These are some scenes at the Kalpana Chawla Government Medical College (KCGMC) that have compelled the authorities to stop new admissions of Covid-positive patients.

KCGMC is a dedicated Covid hospital for four districts Karnal, Kurukshetra, Yamunanagar and Kaithal. Besides, patients from Delhi NCR have also flooded the hospital. As per the information gathered by The Tribune, around 39 patients were being managed against the capacity of 27 beds in the emergency ward. Some patients were given treatment and oxygen on stretchers also. The 90-beds ICU were packed with critical patients, while around 170 patients were on oxygen support on non-ICU beds.

“All beds are full and even treatment is being given to patients on stretchers. We have been directed now not to take any fresh admissions as we do not have more beds,” said a doctor who wished not to be quoted. “As we have many critical patients, our oxygen consumption is increasing day by day. 28-30 cylinders are consumed in 25 minutes in the emergency ward. The situation is grave in ICU and non-ICU wards where high oxygen flow is required,” the doctor added.

Another doctor said, “We have limited resources so the people should cooperate and abide by the guidelines of the government so that the Covid chain breaks.”

Dr Jagdish Dureja, Director, KCGMC, could not be contacted despite several attempts, but Deputy Commissioner-cum District Magistrate Nishant Kumar Yadav confirmed the shortage of beds which has compelled the authorities not to take new admissions.

“We are going to increase the bed capacity. Once the oxygen supply normalises, we will double the beds at KCGMC,” said the DC, adding that they are going to add two more private hospitals in the Covid hospitals list so that the number of beds could be increased.