BHOPAL: The baleful glance of the coronavirus seems to have come to light for the first time in the state capital.
On the one hand, the government claims that the city has all the facilities to deal with corona cases, but on the other hand, the medical system is struggling for breath.
As the number of patients in the state capital has shot up, there is barely any empty bed in the hospitals identified for corona treatment. Accordingly, the government was forced to place the state capital under lockdown for ten days.
During an inquiry, Free Press came to know that the reason for lockdown is not the ensuing festivals, but the failure of the system.
There are 1,645 isolation beds and 262 ICU beds in government and private hospitals.
Bhopal has 1,500 active corona patients, and 150 are in ICU. If the number of patients goes up in a day, there will be hardly any room in hospitals to admit them. The lockdown has been announced to better the medical system.
The number of patients has shot up to 1,000 in the past one week. Yet, the capacity of the hospitals has not been increased.
To hide its failure, the government is saying that the lockdown has been announced because of Bakrid and Rakshabandhan.
In contrast to the government’s claim, the medical system to deal with the corona cases has gone phut. In the state capital, the corona patients are treated in four hospitals – Chirayu Medical College, Hamidia Hospital, AIIMS and JP Hospital.
The officers in the state capital thought that the ferocity of the corona pandemic had ebbed, so they did not pay any heed to augment the hospitals’ capacity.
For this reason, with the rise in number of patients, the shortcomings in the medical system have come to light.
Private hospitals to get permission
The Bhopal district administration has begun to ask the private hospitals to make arrangements for treating corona patients because of lack of facilities to handle such cases in the ones owned by the government. The hospitals in the capital can treat only 600 corona patients. Only 100 patients can be admitted to the ICU in Hamidia Hospital. Accordingly, the private hospitals are being asked to take care of the corona patients. The private hospitals are also developing a system for treating patients. They are looking for buildings where the patients can be kept.
