BHUBANESWAR: With Covid facilities across the State running out of beds, the government has decided to add 438 critical care beds including 70 high dependency units (HDU) at eight dedicated Covid hospitals at the earliest.
The ICU and HDU beds will come up at Sundargarh Medical College, Vikash Multispeciality Hospital at Bargarh, Ispat General Hospital at Rourkela, Bandhabahal Hospital at Jharsuguda, Covid Centre at Kalahandi Engineering College, Hitech Hospital and KIMS Hospital at Bhubaneswar and SCB Medical College and Hospital at Cuttack.
Sources said, around 80 per cent (pc) of the 3,049 ICU/HDU beds have been occupied while most of the Covid hospitals in Sundargarh, Sambalpur, Nayagarh, Nabarangpur, Koraput, Jharsuguda, Khurda, Cuttack, Jagatsinghpur and Balangir are running with 100 per cent ICU occupancy. Of the 975 ventilator-equipped beds in the State, 608 are occupied.
Additional Chief Secretary of Health PK Mohapatra said there are no issues with general beds at hospitals and beds with oxygen supply at Covid care centres (CCCs) and Covid care homes (CCHs). “We have set up 93,851 beds, including 3,049 in ICUs, 975 with ventilators and 28,647 at CCCs/CCHs. Of the 94,297 active cases, 14,170 patients are now under treatment in hospitals and CCCs with 53 pc in general beds, 80 pc in ICUs and 62 pc on ventilators. We will increase the ICU bed strength in a week,” he said.
The government has also decided to stop plasma therapy on Covid patients following instructions from the Centre as per the recommendation of the Covid-19 Task Force of AIIMS/ICMR. Meanwhile, the overall test positivity rate dropped by nearly two pc from 20.7 pc two days before to 18.2 pc as 10,321 people were found positive from 56,684 tests conducted in the last 24 hours.