ROURKELA: Acute shortage of hospital beds has worsened the Covid-19 crisis in Sundargarh district which is witnessing a steep surge in new infections in last few of days. On Friday, 224 persons tested positive for Covid-19 in Sundargarh. The fresh cases included 114 from Rourkela. The district now has 917 active cases.
With rise in new cases, the administration had kept 34 beds reserved for Covid-19 patients at the privately-run JP Hospital and Research Centre Pvt Ltd. The Rourkela Government Hospital (RGH) was equipped with only 20 beds and critical patients were shifted to VIMSAR, Burla. But on Friday, JP Hospital was filled with 64 Covid patients. Faced with the bed crisis, the administration immediately decided to augment dedicated facilities for Covid care.
A senior health official said it was decided that JP Hospital would reserve 50 beds with ventilators and 30 general beds. Besides, a ward of the privately-run Shanti Memorial Hospital, Rourkela with 30 general beds would be utilised as dedicated Covid care centre (CCC). This apart, a 50-bed CCC will come up at NTPC Medical College and Hospital at Sundargarh town from Saturday for both isolation as well as treatment of patients with mild symptoms.
Chief district medical officer Dr SK Mishra said the administration has decided to enhance treatment and institutional facilities in view of the rising cases. Steps are being taken to enhance Covid testing, he added. Currently, around 750 samples are being tested daily and the number is likely to be doubled soon.
Over the last week, the district has reported a whopping 888 new cases. Health officials suspect that the new virus strain of Maharashtra, which infects faster, was one of the reasons behind surging cases in rural Sundargarh after a musical band party of Nagpur in Maharashtra performed at Bandega village of Balishankar block on March 14. Sundargarh’s total positive case count now stands at 17,061.