To redress complaints of non-availability of beds and ensure that both COVID-19 and other patients receive timely medical care, the Pune district administration on Wednesday firmly directed private hospitals to put up accurate information on the availability of beds on the administration’s real-time dashboard.
Saurabh Rao, Officer on Special Duty (OSD), Pune Divisional Commissioner, who along with District Collector Naval Kishore Ram held a meeting with hospital representatives across the district, warned private hospital authorities against any negligence during treatment, misleading patients on bed availability and overcharging them.
He also said five officers of the level of additional district collector had been appointed in order to monitor that beds across hospitals were being managed effectively.
“At the same time, we encourage asymptomatic patients to quarantine themselves at their homes. This will help increase beds in hospitals sorely required for patients with moderate or critical symptoms,” Mr. Rao said, stating that there was a need at the same time to reduce the fear prevalent in minds of people associated with the virus.
Meanwhile, a number of complaints on the Pune district administration allegedly ‘misleading’ citizens with inaccurate information on total available hospital beds surfaced today.
The district on Wednesday reported a staggering surge of over 1,500 new cases with a record fatality surge of 48 deaths, of which 31 were reported from Pune city, taking the district’s death toll to 1,200.
Botanist succumbs
Among those who dies was Dr. P. Lakshminarasimhan, a noted botanist residing in Pune’s Vishrantwadi area. He had retired from the Botanical Survey of India a year back.
Ramesh Iyer, Pune city Congress general secretary and party spokesperson, alleged that Dr. Lakshminarasimhan’s family was forced to run from one end of the city to the other owing to the lack of ICU beds in the district’s hospitals, especially the State-run Sassoon General Hospital.
“Even as the number of cases and deaths continue to soar dramatically in Pune city and the district, the administration has repeatedly been assuring citizens of adequate ICU beds, while stating that in cases of emergency, the patient’s relatives should take the patient to a government hospital. Yesterday, one of my friend’s brother, botanist Dr. Lakshminarasimhan, developed breathlessness and was rushed to the Sahyadri Hospital. But due to lack of ventilator beds there, they were asked to go somewhere else,” Mr. Iyer, told The Hindu.
Mr. Iyer, who was in constant communication with his friend — a close relative of the deceased botanist — said he received a series of frantic calls between 9.30 p.m. on Tuesday and 1.30 a.m. on Wednesday as the patient’s condition steadily worsened.
“Finally, I told the distraught family to take the patient to Sassoon Hospital. Even there, no isolation ICU beds were available. There were already three patients in the queue waiting to get admitted in the isolation ICU,” said Mr. Iyer.
Corporator and Congress leader Arvind Shinde said he had made a number of attempts to find a ventilator bed for the patient in Sassoon, but to no avail. Mr. Shinde said that this was not the first instance in the city of a patient dying owing to a lack of ICU beds and ventilators.
Dr. Laksminarasimhan passed away at around 2 a.m., owing to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). His swab sample test result, which came on Monday evening, returned positive.
“This is indeed an alarming situation. This means that the information on bed-availability on the website provided by the Divisional Commissioner’s office is misleading. This is an extremely callous approach on part of the hospital authorities and the administration,” said Mr. Iyer, stating that he would file a complaint with the Divisional Commissioner’s office regarding the incident.
Over 1,500 new cases
At least 1,520 fresh cases were reported till Wednesday evening as the district’s total case tally surged to 42,846 of whom 15,078 cases were active.
A total 26,623 persons had been discharged in the district thus far, said Pune Divisonal Commisioner Deepak Mhaisekar.
At least 10% of the total cases in Pune district are emerging from its rural areas, which has 1,000-odd active cases presently. To cope with this spike, district administration authorities said they were ramping up contact-tracing processes during the 10-day lockdown in force across the district. Over 1.5 lakh people have been quarantined in the rural areas till date.
