PANAJI
Health Minister Vishwajit Rane on Monday declared that the state is staring at a grave situation and disclosed that the Health Department is likely to make it compulsory for all private hospitals to keep 40 per cent of their bed capacity reserved for Covid patients.
Speaking to the media, the Health Minister stated, “A departmental meeting with private hospitals and Collectors to increase the number of Covid beds in the state is scheduled on Tuesday. I feel that at least 40 per cent of the beds in private hospitals should be compulsorily made available for Covid patients along with manpower under Collectors’ supervision. They cannot shy away from that responsibility. Only then we will be able to combat this menace.”
With the Goa Medical College struggling to make bed space available for Covid patients, Dean of GMC Dr S M Bandekar disclosed that at present, almost 58 patients are being treated on trolleys in the premier government medical institution owing to shortage of beds. “If this requirement continues, we might have to create 40 beds every day for new patients,” Dr Bandekar said. He informed that Ward 121 at GMC will shortly be converted into a 30-bedded Covid ward.
Health Minister Rane laid heavy stress on the government’s ongoing efforts to ensure enough supply of oxygen to Covid patients.
“The oxygen requirement at GMC is very high. Earlier, the requirement was 1,200 to 15,500 cylinders per day and it has now risen to 6,750 per day which is over four times the increase. One company has been asked to provide exclusively to GMC. Govind Poi Raiturkar and another company asked to take care of hospitals in the South. South Goa District Hospital requires almost 2,700 cylinders per day and is expected to go up to 3,750 cylinders a day. Future forecast is exactly double of what we are using today,” Rane said, adding that oxygen beds are also being increased in all facilities.
The Health Department is also maintaining a minimum inventory of 5,000 to 10,000 vials of Remdesivir, the requirement for which is much higher than last year with the weekly requirement having touched 1,200 vials. The second drug used in treating Covid-19, Tocilizumab, is currently short in supply and it was learned that the government is struggling to procure stocks. The Health Minister also made an appeal to all recovered patients to donate convalescent plasma to tide over the plasma shortage which is affecting the line of treatment.
The Department is also battling a daily backlog of over 3,000 swab samples collected for Covid testing and the efforts to procure more testing machines have now been redoubled, Rane said.
Meanwhile, speaking about the shocking rise in Covid graph on a daily basis, Dean Bandekar stated, “Earlier, it was older people and people with comorbidities getting affected more. Now, persons below the age of 45 years are getting affected and even mortality is high in this group. Infectivity rate is higher among the strains in circulation. The one doing rounds in Goa appears to be the double-mutant strain from Maharashtra.”
While the daily positivity rate last year was 18 to 20 per cent, it is averaging at above 20 per cent and touched 34.49 per cent on Monday.
Health Minister Rane warned that the graph is going higher and higher in Goa and in the country. “We don’t know when and how the spike of the second wave will come down. If we don’t adopt all measures, we stand to lose a lot of people over the coming days,” he said.
A lot of doctors are also testing positive and at least five GMC doctors have contracted the virus in the recent days.
Going by this gloomy picture, the Health Minister urged people to step out only if necessary. “Young people need to understand that this is not the time to party. This is a serious situation. Parents should keep their kids at home. Action should be taken against such clubs. Load is increasing on the health sector,” he rued.
The Health Minister himself admitted that there are instances where people, in spite of testing positive, are moving around and refuse to remain isolated.
