SVIMS tops in fight against corona

Tirupati: Undeterred by the criticism on the services being extended to Covid patients in Sri Padmavathi state Covid hospital attached to SVIMS, the doctors and other staff have been working relentlessly to provide best possible care to virus infected persons. With the increase in Covid cases, the death toll has also increased and recorded even more than 10 deaths per day on many occasions during August and September.

With this, the services at the hospital were criticised by many and a negative publicity had gone viral which has made several patients to think twice before taking admission there. However, the number of admissions has never come down with 65-75 patients from Chittoor and surrounding districts were admitted in this hospital daily when the cases were in their peak. Now, with a slight drop in cases, the admissions also dipped to around 55-60 per day now. Director-cum-Vice-Chancellor of SVIMS Dr B Vengamma underlined that out of 3,407 patients under critical condition took admission among whom the recovery rate was 87 per cent. "Being a state Covid hospital, critical cases and aged people come to us for admission. Many patients have come when the situation deteriorated. If we take the statistics, several patients have died 1-2 days and even within one hour and half an hour of admission. Still we need to admit them and make our efforts," she explained.

Speaking to The Hans India, she said several steps were taken to improve monitoring of patient services and made accountability for each and everything. CC cameras were installed everywhere and started taking feedback from every patient and 95 per cent positive patient back. Counselling sessions were also being conducted daily and concerned doctors have been informing the patient relatives about the condition daily between 12-4 pm. Things are much better now, she opined.

To a question, she said though there was no shortage of doctors, they were in dire need of nursing staff as some of them have joined government service recently. Efforts were on to recruit them on outsourcing basis, she added.

From March 21 to September 30, a total of 5,111 Covid patients were admitted in the hospital of which 4,060 have been discharged after they were cured completely. In September alone, out of 1,504 patients, 1,369 were cured. The hospital has procured Rs 2.21 crore worth of Remedesivir injections and Rs 5.40 lakh worth of Tocilizumab injections.

Meanwhile, the Virus Research and Diagnostic Laboratory (VRDL) in SVIMS was the first lab recognised in the state to conduct RT-PCR tests to test Covid cases. It has conducted 2.27 lakh tests so far in which 29,925 were tested positive. In September alone, 56,348 Covid tests were conducted in which 9,896 people got positive.