Are India's Private Hospitals Ready To Handle Covid-19?

Brut India

If the Covid-19 situation worsens, how are India's private hospitals planning to cope? This is what Dr. Girdhar Gyani, Director General of Association of Healthcare Providers (India), told Brut.

Transcript

00:00As far as stage 4 is concerned, which is of course the epidemic, where hundreds and thousands

00:04of people get affected in other countries, I am sure with the kind of preparation which

00:09we are having, we will not enter at all in the stage 4.

00:15On 19th March, the Secretary of Health called a meeting of key associations including IMA

00:33and our association and appraised us of the issues and concerns arising of the COVID-19.

00:40Actually the meeting was to tell us what government was preparing for and in what way private

00:47sector can associate with the government on COVID-19 and we decided to constitute four

00:56task forces.

00:57One of the task force was how do we prepare the COVID hospitals in the country and I was

01:04nominated as convener of this particular task force.

01:09The issue here was that in the event of drastic spread of the infection, we would not only

01:17need hospitals but we will need hospitals with the appropriate number of ICU.

01:23As per the trend which was evident from Paris, Italy and China, we considered that two beds

01:32per 10,000 population will be required.

01:36Accordingly, we think that city like Bangalore should have 2,000 beds, city like Mumbai should

01:42have 2,500 beds and city like Delhi should have 3,000 ICU beds.

01:48This is what we have recommended and we also added there that 50% of the ICU beds should

01:54be equipped with ventilators.

01:56Now the strong recommendation from our side has been that government should do the mapping

02:01of the various districts in the country and identify how many ICU beds will be required

02:09in that particular district.

02:11Minimum number which has been suggested by us is the 500 ICU beds in any of the district.

02:17Now in terms of priority, we have said that government should pick up the government hospitals

02:22followed up by defense hospital, followed up by the ESI, PSU, medical colleges and even

02:29the dental college hospitals.

02:31Once these hospitals are exhausted and suppose we need more beds in that particular district,

02:38then we have offered that private sector will be ready to offer one or two hospitals entirely

02:43for the COVID.

02:44We have strongly recommended that we should not mix up the COVID patient with a non-COVID

02:50patient in the same hospital.

02:52Let me tell you that some of the hospitals have already come forward and offered their

02:56services for this particular cause.

02:58Now issue which is coming here is that many people are saying that the number of patients

03:05which is being shown on television is far less than what actually could be the number.

03:12The issue here is that we are testing only the cases which show the serious symptoms

03:17because of the reason that we do not want to haphazardly use the testing kits because

03:23we are in short supply.

03:25Once we have adequate number of testing kits, we will do random sampling testing of more

03:32patients.

03:33But otherwise, whatever number is being shown is the true number and government is not hiding

03:39any number so far in this particular case.

03:43I also was asked about whether we have arrived into stage three.

03:50I look at it like this.

03:52The few cases which have come which are not linked to the foreign patients or not linked

03:57to the direct contact with the foreign patient, that is one indication that we are perhaps

04:04entering into stage three.

04:06But at the same time, the total number which is coming every day, the number of increase

04:11which is only arithmetic increase, not geometric increase, so I do not know whether we can

04:17officially call this as stage three.

04:20But at the end of the day, I would like to say we should start preparing as if we are

04:25actually in stage three, then only the seriousness will come.

04:28The lockdown which has been imposed, which is unprecedented in the entire country including

04:34train and air services, is going to arrest the spread and also it will give us time to

04:41prepare adequately for the epidemic.

04:45As far as stage four is concerned, which is of course the epidemic where hundreds and

04:48thousands of people get affected in other countries, I am sure with the kind of preparation

04:53which we are having, we will not enter at all in the stage four.

05:00Thank you very much.

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