PANAJI
Dean of Goa Medical College and Hospital Dr S M Bandekar pointed out that around 53 per cent or 47 out of the 88 Covid-related deaths recorded at GMC have occured within 24 hours of admitting the patient.
Briefing the media along with Health Minister Vishwajit Rane, Dr Bandekar said, “There have been 88 Covid fatalities at GMC. Out of these, 79 had comorbidities and four were brought dead. But 47 patients succumbed within 24 hours of admission as these patients arrived too late to be saved. We tried everything and 18 of these even received plasma but could not be saved.”
However, the trend does not hold true for ESI Covid Hospital where only 14 out of 115 Covid-related deaths have occured within 24 hours of admission of the patient, a mere 12 per cent.
Of the 115 deaths recorded at ESI Covid Hospital, 102 patients had comorbidities and 45 received plasma.
The stark difference between the mortality trends at GMC and ESI Covid Hospital speaks volumes. A considerable number of symptomatic patients still appear to be delaying the visit to the health care center while rushing GMC only in the last stages of the infection at time of cytokine storm when medical facilities fail to be of any help. Of the 203 Covid deaths recorded at these two hospitals, 63 were administered plasma therapy before they succumbed.
Considering this, Dr Bandekar has appealed to people to follow the protocol and seek medical help immediately if they develop symptoms of Covid-19 before their health worsens.
Dr Bandekar informed that at present, GMC has a total of 183 patients of whom 21 are in critical condition while the ESI Covid Hospital has 186 patients and Ponda Sub-District Hospital has 60 Covid patients.
According to the information provided by Directorate of Health Services, Covid care centers in North Goa have a total bed capacity of 545 of which 158 are presently vacant. On the other hand, South Goa has almost double the capacity. And at present, 246 beds out of the total 1,006 beds in the district are vacant.
Dr S M Bandekar sought to explain that the shortage of beds in Covid hospitals arises because patients have to be admitted at these facilities for at least 15 days or more. “We have incidents when they have gone home and returned with complications so we don’t discharge unless the patient recovers,” Dr Bandekar said.
He further declared that the Health Department will soon begin to release a separate “mortality bulletin” giving details about the cause of death, antecedent causes and comorbid conditions as per WHO format.
The Dean also offered a comparative overview of the mortality rate over three months in 2019 and 2020 recorded at GMC. “It is not that because of Covid-19, death rate has increased in 2020. All these patients earlier were dying due to the severity of comorbid conditions at our Medicine Department,” Dr Bandekar said.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Rane also informed that certain departments at GMC including skin and ophthalmology have been shut down in order to divert medical resources towards Covid management.
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