Hyderabad: Covid Patients struggle debunks government claims on vacant beds

Hyderabad: Although the state government is denying any shortage of beds, Covid patients continue to complain that they are struggling to get the beds both in government and private hospitals.

All the beds in dedicated Covid hospitals like Gandhi, TIMS, King Kothi and district hospitals are full. Only a few of the private hospitals in the districts adjoining GHMC have some beds but the charges are very high.

According to the state government, Covid cases in the state are on decline and the data shows that the active cases have reduced to 45,000 from 80,000 but still finding a bed in the hospitals has become a difficult task.

A majority of the people who prefer government hospitals for Covid treatment have to wait for the bed until discharge of another patient. The government has promised to increase the bed capacity up to 60,000 but the works are still not completed.

Also, there is a shortage of ventilator and oxygen beds in the state. About 4,000 ventilator beds are there in government and private hospitals. In the government, Gandhi Hospital has 600 ventilators beds and Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences (TIMS) has 300, King Kothi Hospital has 50 ventilator beds but the hospitals are still unable to meet the current demand even after the decline in the positive cases.

The government has been saying that almost 50 per cent of the beds in Telangana were occupied by patients from neighbouring states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh.

After a review meeting with the top Health officials, Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar instructed the Health department to see that the bed capacity in various government hospitals in the city was increased.

Additional beds at Sarojini Devi Eye Hospitals and Golconda area hospitals are ready but the oxygen pipeline works are yet to commence. They say they were awaiting instructions from the government to start the works.