Cases dip, six Delhi govt hospitals back to being fully non-Covid facilities

New Delhi: Delhi government has removed six of its hospitals from among those handling Covid-19 cases in the wake of dwindling new cases. The number of beds reserved for Covid patients in many hospitals too has been significantly decreased, with Lok Nayak Hospital now reserving just 300 beds for Covid patients from the 2,000 beds earlier, while the 1,500-bedded Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital ceased to have even a single Covid bed.

“Consequent upon reduction in reporting of Covid-19 cases in Delhi, the competent authority has decided to de-escalate the number of dedicated beds reserved for Covid in 11 Delhi government hospitals,” said a government official. Among the 11 designated facilities, six have been turned fully non-Covid, while beds have been reduced in the rest.

Lok Nayak Hospital, which was India’s largest Covid care centre when the pandemic was at its peak, is back to normal operations and has re-started OPD services. Suresh Kumar, the hospital’s medical director, said that only 31 of the 300 beds are occupied. “Among the 31 patients, 14 are in the ICU. We have 50 ICU beds with ventilators and 50 ICU beds without ventilators,” disclosed Kumar. The hospital has so far treated 11,000 Covid patients and arguably has recorded the highest number of Covid recoveries in the country.

The hospitals declared fully non-Covid are GTB, Deen Dayal Upadhyay, Deep Chand Bandhu, Sanjay Gandhi Memorial, Acharya Shree Bhikshu and SRC Hospital. Those where the number of Covid beds has been slashed include Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar, Burari, Ambedkar Nagar and Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital. “RGSSH’s 650 Covid beds has been reduced to 500. Currently, only two Covid-19 patients are admitted in the hospital,” said Chhavi Gupta, a hospital official.

OPD services for non-Covid patients have also begun in GTB and RGSSH. “The rush in the OPDs isn’t as big as in the pre-Covid days, but day by day more people are coming. Each day, around 600 non-Covid patients are coming to our OPD,” said RSSH’s Gupta.

At present, Delhi has 1,174 active Covid cases, of them 471 in home isolation. The positivity rate has slipped to 0.19%, which is all time low even though over 60,000 Covid tests are being conducted every day.