North Karnataka districts reel under shortage of ICU beds

YADGIR: The healthcare system in most North Karnataka (NK) districts is straining under the onslaught of the Covid-19 second wave with ICU beds near full in most districts. The situation is so grim that availability in cases is dependent on the death of patients.
In Yadgir, an aspirational district under NITI Ayog, the total number of ICU beds is just 20. The district, which reports about 300 cases a day over the past week, does not have even a single sophisticated private hospital to share the burden.About 5% of daily cases need intensive care.
“Nowadays, an ICU bed invariably gets vacant on the death of a patient,” said Dr Vrinda who works at a govt facility. “It’s filled by one who is next in the queue. Words cannot describe the scenes here.”
Indumati Kamashetty, district health officer (DHO), said the administration plans to rope in Spandana, a private hospital, but even then, they would not be able to meet demand.
The situation is just as grim in Kalaburagi with 275 of the total 277 beds occupied as on Sunday. Sharanabasappa Ganajalked, DHO, said he expected the two beds to be filled in a “matter of hours” and they would be forced to turn away patients thereafter. This is despite support from dedicated private hospitals. Dr Vikram Siddareddy, chairman and MD, United Hospital, said all ICU beds in his facility are already full and they are sending away at least 10 patients daily.
Dr Siddareddy said once a patient is admitted to the ICU s/he needs to be treated for a minimum of 10 days. But with cases surging, the number of people requiring hospitalisation is far more than the number of beds.
“It’s not about the number of beds or occupancy alone, but also availability of resources for the ICU,” said Pavankumar Malapati, Ballari DC. He said like other districts in NK, ICUs in Ballari too are near full capacity. “We can only provide oxygen should cases rise above occupancy limits. We are also hapless,” he said.
In Raichur, only about 69 of the 175 ICU beds are occupied and Ramakrishna, DHO, said the situation is under control as the number of severe cases is very few. Bagalkot too has more beds than severe cases, but DHO Ananth Desai said patients streaming in from Vijayapura and Raichur are a worry. “We are ramping up ICU beds to take care of those coming from other districts,” he said.
Bidar though is at the other end of the spectrum. Depending on their condition, patients are being transferred out of the ICU to oxygenated beds.