Bed shortage in COVID-19 hospitals forces Odisha to change strategy

Patients to be discharged after 10 days from the date of sample collection

With dedicated COVID-19 hospitals in Bhubaneswar fast running out of beds, the Odisha government has moved to discharge patients after 10 days from the date of sample collection. The move is intended at ending overstaying in these hospitals.

A high-level meeting, chaired by State’s Development Commissioner, resolved that as per the discharge protocol, a patient stood clinically discharged after 10 days from the date of sample collection provided he had no symptoms for the last three days.

The proceedings of the meeting said, “Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation will prepare the list of such patients on ninth day district wise and post in the collectors WhatsApp group. The concerned collector will take step to pick those cured cases on the 10th day from the respective COVID Hospitals of Bhubaneswar by sending vehicles for pick up.”

In case of default, such cured patients would be transferred from the hospitals to COVID-19 care homes in the city.

Odisha had created 48 COVID-19 hospitals, having 7,328 beds and 710 intensive care unit beds. There were 1,180 beds and 236 ICU beds available in four COVID-19 hospitals in Bhubaneswar. In Cuttack city, 266 beds and 34 ICUs were available.

SOP not followed

As per information presented at the meeting, the COVID-19 hospitals in Bhubaneswar were being used by all other districts as referral hospitals. It was observed that the other districts were not following the standard operating procedure.

“The available facility at the district-level must be utilised to the fullest extent before referring a patient to the COVID-19 hospitals in Bhubaneswar,” said official sources.

It was decided that the facilities available in the cluster districts would be exhausted first before deciding to shift patients to Bhubaneswar. All districts would check with the city COVID-19 hospitals about the availability of the requisite facility needed before sending a patient.

The government has threatened to withhold payment to the Bhubaneswar-based KIIMS Hospital if deliberate delay was made to make ICUs functional at Balangir, Mayurbhanj and Kandhamal districts. Functional ICUs would help decrease in critical patient load in the COVID-19 hospitals of Bhubaneswar, it was noted.

RT-PCR testing

In another significant step, the government decided to give emphasis on mentioning cyclic threshold value in the RT-PCR testing.

“This value determines the viral load of the positive cases. If the CT value is known, then the cases can be prioritised for admission to COVID-19 care centres,” it said.

To ease the pressure on COVID-19 hospitals, the government had asked officials to promote home isolation as well as enforce that all private hospitals earmarked 10% of their bed capacity for COVID-19 treatment. Even private players, who had partnered with the government to create dedicated COVID-19 hospitals, should divert 10% of beds for COVID-19 treatment.

Odisha’s COVID-19 cases, meanwhile, surged past the 1.5 lakh mark, with 50,000 cases added up in the past two weeks.