Hyderabad: Chest Hospital yanked from Covid centres list

Hyderabad: Fearing cross infection to other patients coming with serious respiratory issues, TB and Chest hospital has been removed from the list of eight hospitals that were notified for treatment of Covid-19 patients in Telangana.

As the name suggests, TB patients frequent this hospital in Erragadda. Health authorities raised concerns of cross infection as Covid-19 positive patients are also treated on the same premises. People coming with TB and other respiratory issues have low immunity and hence it was not advisable to admit Covid-19 positive cases in Chest hospital, higher-ups in the health department were told, and accordingly its name was removed from the fresh list declared by the government. Fever hospital that does not have ICU and ventilator support facilities did not figure in the fresh hospital list.

It may be mentioned here that Chest and Fever hospitals were among the first three designated hospitals in the state including Gandhi Hospital where Covid-19 cases were admitted. Although Chest and Fever hospitals have been removed as treatment centres, they will continue to admit suspected cases and if diagnosed positive the patient will be shifted to any of these eight hospitals including Gandhi hospital, District Hospital (King Koti), Gachibowli hospital, Nature Cure hospital (Begumpet), Govt. Nizamia General Hospital, Charminar, Govt. Ayurveda hospital (Erragadda), Govt. Ayurveda Teaching hospital, Warangal, DK Government Homeo Hospital, Ramanthapur, Hyderabad.

If one may observe, barring one hospital in district (Warangal), rest of the seven hospitals are located in the state capital. Also, the list has a few Ayush hospitals (Ayurveda and Homeo) apart from allopathic hospitals.