MARGAO
South Goa district Covid hospital’s bed occupancy stood at 50 on Monday, leaving around 100 beds vacant in the imposing newly-commissioned building.
The current bed capacity position should ring in good news for the Covid-19 pandemic administrators. Hospicio authorities, however, are happy over the emerging situation for a different reason.
They are hoping Covid cases will drop drastically and all Hospicio services will be shifted to the district hospital building. Doctors, paramedics and health workers attached to the over a century and half old Hospicio are looking forward to the day when the district hospital will be denotified as a Covid hospital.
It’s now a little over a month and a half since the Out Patient Department (OPD) services and the male and female wards were shifted back to the Hospicio building after the government notified the district hospital for Covid work much against the sentiments of Hospicio doctors and health workers.
The shifting had taken place when the state had witnessed a huge spike in Covid cases and the notified hospitals, ESI hospital, Margao and Goa Medical College and Hospital, Bambolim, witnessed a bed shortage.
With the number of Covid cases registering a sharp decline in the current month, Hospicio doctors and paramedics are indeed looking forward to the day when they will move into the spacious district hospital building.
A senior Hospicio doctor told The Goan that life has not been the same since the shifting back of the OPD and the male and female medicine wards back to the Hospicio building. “As it is, space constraint was a major issue plaguing Hospicio. The SOPs in place in view of Covid have only made matters worse in the hospital,” remarked the doctor.
The doctor added: “We do not see any possibility of the district hospital being de-notified as Covid hospital, at least till the vaccine is in place. But doctors, nurses and para-medics certainly look forward to the day when entire Hospicio operations are shifted lock, stock and barrel to the new hospital building.”
A visit to Hospicio, especially in the mornings, would bring to the fore the magnitude of the space problem plaguing the hospital. With the OPDs back to the building, one comes across serpentine queues of patients waiting for their turn to be called inside by the doctors.
The situation at the pathological laboratory is no better. One cannot just walk in for the blood test, but seek prior appointment with the lab receptionist. And, on the day of the appointment, one has to stand in a big queue for the blood test, a difficult proposition in the time of Covid.
The Hospicio casualty continues to operate from a makeshift place, which was earlier occupied by the hospital medical superintendent. The casualty ward continues to grapple with space as the rush of patients has only made the doctors and paramedics to hope for the day when it is shifted to the district hospital building, where a state-of-the-art facility is waiting to be occupied.
