This is an archive article published on May 23, 2021
Dip in Covid cases frees up Pimpri-Chinchwad hospitals, but struggle continues for ventilator beds
Dr Rajendra Wable, dean of YCM hospital, said,"PCMC has banned shifting of ICU patients of private hospitals to civic hospitals, because many smaller hospitals seek to shift their patients to civic facilities only when their condition deteriorates.”
Huge number of beneficiaries line up for their first dose of Covid vaccine at Oyster and Pearl Hospital in Shivajinagar, Pune. (Express Photo)
With Covid-19 cases consistently dipping in the industrial city of Pimpri-Chinchwad for the past 10 days, nearly 60 per cent of the beds in civic and private hospitals are now vacant.
Ventilator beds in civic hospitals, however, still remain scarce, officials said, partly because patients from private hospitals too shift to government facilities once their condition worsens and the cost of treatment rises.
According to the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) health department, of the total 10,884 beds available in civic and private hospitals, by Sunday afternoon, 6,500, or 60 per cent of the beds were vacant, while 4,384 were occupied.
As many as 2,328 oxygen beds were vacant. Of these, 555 were vacant in private hospitals and 1,773 in civic hospitals. Only six ventilators were available in civic hospitals, while 40 were free in private hospitals by Sunday afternoon.
“In civic hospitals, it does not take time for ventilator beds to get filled as patients from five civic hospitals are shifted there as per the requirement,” said PCMC health chief Dr Anil Roy.
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Dr Rajendra Wable, dean of YCM hospital, said,”PCMC runs five hospitals. It has banned shifting of ICU patients of private hospitals to civic hospitals. This is because many smaller hospitals seek to shift their patients to civic hospitals only when their condition deteriorates. At YCMH, we have patients either on oxygen support or ventilator support. Some of those who are on oxygen support require ventilator support and are shifted there. Also, we get patients from our other four facilities when their condition turns series. In short, ventilator beds are generally not available in civic hospitals,” he said.
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PCMC health chief Dr Pavan Salve said,”Unlike last month, this month, we have seen a consistent fall in numbers. In the last 10 days, we have seen less than 1,000 positive cases. As a result, a large number of vacant beds are now available in hospitals.”
Dr Salve said as many as 5,374 COVID-19 patients recovered on Saturday, which was among the highest recovery figures registered on a single day. He said till date, 2,46,054 citizens have tested positive for COVID-19. “Of these, 2.34,392 patients have recovered.
Meanwhile, the Bhosari MIDC police on Saturday took action against 70 persons caught violating Covid norms during their morning walk. A collective fine of Rs 35,000 was recovered from them.
Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.
Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives.
Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees.
During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa.
Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.
Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More
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