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This is an archive article published on April 5, 2021

Patients struggle to find beds in government hospitals in Pimpri-Chinchwad

By Monday morning, there was not a single ICU bed with ventilator available in any of the four PCMC hospitals and two other facilities. Only 30 oxygen beds were available.

Family members plead for admission with a doctor at Bhosari hospital (Express photo/Manoj More)Family members plead for admission with a doctor at Bhosari hospital (Express photo/Manoj More)

Due to huge rush of coronavirus patients, hospitals in Pimpri-Chinchwad are fast running out of ventilators, ICUs and oxygen beds. By Monday morning, there was not a single ICU bed with ventilator available in any of the four PCMC hospitals and two other facilities. Only 30 oxygen beds were available.

The lack of beds in government hospitals is especially hard for patients from poor financial backgrounds, who can’t afford private hospital treatment.

Around 1 pm on Monday, The Indian Express was witness to a Covid19 patient and his father being turned away at a PCMC-run hospital in Bhosari.

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“I was in home isolation for a few days, but now I am feeling uneasy… I need hospital admission,” the patient told the doctors at the hospital.

Dr Shivaji Dhage, in-charge at Bhosari Hospital, asked the patient and his father to try their luck at Jumbo Hospital or YCM Hospital. “We went to those hospitals, but there is not a single bed available there,” the patient said.

Dr Dhage told The Indian Express that the 100-bed Bhosari Hospital was already full. “We have a waiting list of 15 patients… Every day, scores of patients have to be turned away,” he said. The hospital staff said they were under tremendous pressure from “influential citizens” to admit their near and dear ones.

At the Jumbo hospital at Nehrunagar, Dr Sangram Kapale said though the bed capacity had been increased from 200 to 400, only serious patients could be accommodated.

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YCMH dean Dr Rajendra Wable said 450 beds, including the ones in ICU, were full. “We have to ask patients to search for beds elsewhere… At least 100 patients have to be turned away,” he said.

PCMC health chief Dr Anil Roy said, “Till Sunday evening, none of the PCMC hospitals had a ventilator bed though there were 30 oxygen beds available,” he said.

Dr Roy said Pimpri-Chinchwad has a total bed capacity of 4,283, including those in civic hospitals and private ones. “Of these, 3,293 beds are occupied while 900 beds are available. Of these, 800 beds are in private hospitals. While PCMC hospitals do not have a single bed with ventilator in ICU, private hospitals have 34 ventilator beds available in ICU. Besides, private hospitals also have 330 oxygen beds available,” he said.

Dr Roy said on Sunday evening, Pimpri-Chinchwad recorded another single-day high of 3,300 positive cases. “The daily positivity rate has now reached 55 per cent. From last week or so, the positivity rate has been around 40 per cent. We have been conducting between 4,000 to 6,000 tests every day,” he said.

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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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