Bengaluru's COVID-19 ICUs run out of beds for patients

Bengaluru's COVID-19 ICUs have run out of beds for patients needing intensive care. The city has 36 ICU patients, according to the daily COVID-19 media bulletin. However, the city's COVID-19 ICUs have 40 patients.

At the city's main COVID-19 designated hospital -- Emergency and Trauma Care Centre's (Victoria Hospital) -- 36 ICU beds are full. The other 14 ICU beds in Victoria Hospital are not ready because of logistical reasons.

For latest updates and live news on coronavirus, click here

Dr CR Jayanthi, Dean and Director, Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute, said, "All 36 beds in the Emergency and Trauma Care Centre are full. The other 14 ICU beds on Victoria Hospital campus are not ready yet for logistical reasons." Emergency and Trauma Care Centre doctors said there are currently 34 patients in the ICU and two are reserved for sick ward patients who may deteriorate.

Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital's COVID-19 ICU has 20 beds, which are all equipped with both ventilators and high flow oxygen. Six were occupied as on Wednesday evening and 14 were vacant.

Dr C Nagaraj, Director, Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases (RGICD), said, "We have 104 COVID beds. We were told once Victoria Hospital and Bowring Hospital are full, patients will be sent here. But as far as ICU is concerned, we have only six COVID ICU beds, four ventilators and three are equipped with high flow oxygen. We have no intensivists. To manage six ICU patients we need at least six intensivists to work in three shifts."

When confronted with these numbers, Health Commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pandey maintained that hospitals have vacant ICU beds. But the numbers provided by him were in stark contrast to what hospital heads confirmed. Pandey told DH, "The 14 ICU beds at Victoria Hospital will be ready with logistics in a day. RGICD has 32 ICU beds and 24 ventilators. They can treat patients if intensivists are diverted from elsewhere. Bowring Hospital has five ICU beds and five ventilators. We have so many ICU beds in the private sector. We have no problem. We will finalise the rates in a day."

However, Bengaluru is the only metro that is yet to finalise COVID-19 treatment rates. Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai have already fixed treatment rates. Pandey also said that the city has KC General Hospital, CV Raman Hospital, and Epidemic Diseases Hospital, which can take more than 300 patients but their ICUs are either full or not functional.

KC General Hospital's six ICU beds are full, according to Medical Superintendent Dr BR Venkateshiah. Dr HDR Radhakrishna, Medical Superintendent of CV Raman General Hospital said that the hospital ICU is not functional, and Dr Ansar Ahmed, medical superintendent of Epidemic Diseases Hospital, said that the hospital had no ICU, intensivists or anaesthesiologists.