Tamil Nadu govt adds 430 Covid beds in and around Chennai

CHENNAI: Despite cases being on the decline, the state government seems to be in no mood to drop its guard as it continues to add more oxygen-supported beds to state health facilities for Covid-19 patients. Over the last 48 hours, the government added 430 Covid beds to hospitals in and around Chennai. This includes an 80-bed unit at Omandurar Medical College Hospital set up with the help of a private sponsor.
“This is a temporary structure aimed at treating more patients in case there is a spike,” said hospital dean R Jayanthi, who added that there was no intention to dismantle any Covid bed anytime soon even if cases continue to reduce.All additional beds set up since last March are still intact.
According to official data, 36% of the total 760 oxygen beds in the hospital were vacant. But not a single ICU bed was available.
At Stanley Medical College Hospital, another 150 beds were added exclusively for mucormycosis (black fungus) cases. Of this, 40 will be ICU beds. Besides this an operation theatre was inaugurated at this exclusive mucormycosis block so patients need not be shifted to other blocks. Ophthalmologists, ENT and neuro surgeons were posted to the block along with microbiologists to collect swabs so that all treatment options were available under one roof, said hospital dean P Balaji. The number of mucormycosis cases in Tamil Nadu crossed the 1,000-mark on Tuesday.
A 200-bed Covid centre was opened at Sriperumbudur government hospital so patients need not travel all the way to the city or Kancheepuram in search of a bed. Chennai district at present has 16,717 Covid beds. It was around12,000 last month.
Meanwhile some private hospitals are converting some Covid beds back to non-Covid ones to treat other cases. Last week, a total of 8,300 Covid beds were available. Now, 8,163 beds are set aside for Covid patients. Private hospitals said most institutes preferred to keep Covid beds vacant in case of a spike in cases and adding that it was difficult to treat covid and non-covid in the same place.
Only emergency surgeries relating to road accidents, pregnancies and heart attack, stroke, appendicitis among others were conducted in separate blocks in private hospitals. Very few elective surgeries were taken up at Chennai hospitals.