AIIMS trauma centre designated for Covid again

The move has been criticised by doctors at the hospital as it cuts availability of beds, ICU, and operation theatres for trauma patients in need of urgent interventions.

The Jai Prakash Narayan Apex Trauma Centre associated with AIIMS is one of only two level-1 trauma centres — a centre equipped to provide the highest level of care to the critically injured — in Delhi.

With Covid cases increasing in the city, AIIMS has once again shifted its trauma department to the main hospital and made the stand-alone centre across the road a dedicated Covid hospital.

The move has been criticised by doctors at the hospital as it cuts availability of beds, ICU, and operation theatres for trauma patients in need of urgent interventions. It also scatters departments such as the general, neuro, and orthopaedic surgery across the main hospital, compromising the care of polytrauma patients — those with two or more severe injuries — who need comprehensive treatment by all the teams.

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The Jai Prakash Narayan Apex Trauma Centre associated with AIIMS is one of only two level-1 trauma centres — a centre equipped to provide the highest level of care to the critically injured — in Delhi. It was one of the first few stand-alone hospitals that were entirely dedicated to Covid treatment in March 2020. Trauma services were resumed in late November, keeping 100 segregated beds at the centre still for Covid patients.

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“There are only 150 beds available for trauma care at the centre currently. What is the need to make it a Covid centre? Especially now when we are seeing that the new variant is causing mild disease in most patients. It is sad that we are losing more patients due to trauma than Covid. The hospital has started a new burns and plastics department and a mother and child block that is still not fully utilised and may be used to treat Covid patients,” said a senior doctor from the hospital, on condition of anonymity.

The hospital’s resident doctors’ association has also written to the AIIMS director stating that even with the lockdown, there was only a 20 to 25% decline in the number of trauma patients coming to the hospital, whereas the infrastructure available gets reduced by 75 to 80% when the trauma centre is moved to the main hospital. “Even when road accidents went down because of lockdown, we saw more cases of violence at home and neighbourhoods. Patients were coming to us with stab and blunt wounds… and now we will have cases of road accidents along with such cases,” said another doctor from the hospital. As per the letter, only 95 beds were available for treatment of trauma patients at the main AIIMS hospital as compared to the 264 available at the stand-alone centre. Only three operation theatres were available instead of six. And, 18 ICU beds were available instead of 38.

“These beds are made available under the existing departments of the main hospital. What this effectively means is if I take in the trauma patients, I am pushing out those who probably need cancer surgeries or other planned surgeries,” said the senior doctor.

Anonna Dutt

Anonna Dutt is a Principal Correspondent who writes primarily on health at the Indian Express. She reports on myriad topics ranging from the growing burden of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and hypertension to the problems with pervasive infectious conditions. She reported on the government’s management of the Covid-19 pandemic and closely followed the vaccination programme. Her stories have resulted in the city government investing in high-end tests for the poor and acknowledging errors in their official reports. Dutt also takes a keen interest in the country’s space programme and has written on key missions like Chandrayaan 2 and 3, Aditya L1, and Gaganyaan. She was among the first batch of eleven media fellows with RBM Partnership to End Malaria. She was also selected to participate in the short-term programme on early childhood reporting at Columbia University’s Dart Centre. Dutt has a Bachelor’s Degree from the Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication, Pune and a PG Diploma from the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. She started her reporting career with the Hindustan Times. When not at work, she tries to appease the Duolingo owl with her French skills and sometimes takes to the dance floor. ... Read More

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