Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s decision to convert Sir Ganga Ram superspeciality hospital into a COVID-19 hospital is not in the public interest, feels Dr Dhiren Gupta – consultant pediatric, Intensive Care Unit. According to Dr Gupta, such a decision is going to impact patients who can be treated only in a superspeciality hospital. Some diseases require sophisticated interventions (like pediatric bronchoscopy, dialysis, chemotherapy, bone marrow care, liver transplant care, etc ) which cannot be provided in general hospitals but 99 percent COVID patients who require general care can be managed at home, hotels or general hospitals.
“Delhi government can convert any hospital into a COVID-19 hospital but not every hospital can be a superspeciality like Ganga Ram. So far we are trying our best to treat non-COVID patients but the decision is definitely not going to benefit other critically ill persons,” Dr Gupta added.
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The doctor feels that not more than 30-40 per cent of the available bed capacity at a superspeciality hospital should be reserved for COVID-19 patients.
Any given hospital cannot be converted into 100 percent COVID hospital as there could be patients in an emergency requiring acute care but they may turn out to be non-COVID. So there has to be a non-COVID area for patients who are non-transferable or waiting for reports.
On top of that, the Delhi government has suspended its license to test COVID-19. This is when the hospital is equipped to get the test reports in almost an hour.
“If 80 per cent of our patients are going to be COVID-19 positive but asymptomatic how are we suppose to treat them without testing, Unless I know the COVID status I won’t be able to find a proper place for the patient (COVID suspect requires a different set of precautions and place and sick child require ICU care too),” said Dr Gupta.
This also endangers the lives of other non-COVID patients in the hospital because the coronavirus can be spread by silent spreaders.
“Asymptomatic patients require testing before entering any hospital beyond the triage area as they can not only turn out to be super spreader but also some procedures if performed on these asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic patients may result in a casualty,” the doctor said.
For the uninitiated, silent spreaders are the people who are infected with the deadly virus but show little to no symptoms of the disease.
“Therefore any patients who require admission in hospital should be tested for COVID-19,” the doctor emphasised.
Also, patients who are supposed to be administered chemotherapy need to be tested for COVID-19 as this can be disastrous if the patient is positive.
He also said that the government can conduct any number of inquires if they feel that the Ganga Ram hospital was not following ICMR guidelines for test COVID-19 patients but it should not be stopped.
