Cuttack: There is no more unoccupied Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in Cuttack district to treat coronavirus-infected patients as all the beds have been filled following a rapid surge in COVID cases across the district. It may sound untrue, but it is the reality.
There are 34 ICUs in the district and all are occupied. Similarly, out of 20 ventilators, 15 have been in use.
With regard to beds, out of 150 beds in Ashwini COVID Hospital, 35 were lying vacant. Similarly, the COVID care centre set up at Gopabandhu Institute of Medical Science and Research (GIMSAR) at Athgarh has 150 beds and of them, 124 were occupied.
If the total beds in other eight COVID care centres in the district are put together, the number is 1230. Out of them, 772 were occupied and 458 were lying vacant.
As of now, the cause of headache for the district administration is not the availability of beds but the shortage of ICUs.
When asked, Cuttack district collector Bhawani Shankar Chayani said if any patient is required to be shifted to ICU, they will be shifted to those COVID-19 hospitals in neighbouring districts where there will be vacant ICUs.
The COVID-19 warriors in the district are increasingly being infected by the virus. Till Sunday, a total of 301 such warriors were infected. Of them, 68 are undergoing treatment.
Among the infected warriors, there are 19 doctors, 36 staff nurses, three ASHA and Anganwadi workers, four pharmacists and six technicians. Similarly, 129 employees of NDRF, ODRAF, police and traffic police have been infected, the collector informed.
For swab samples collection, 14 and six teams have been formed for rural and urban areas respectively. So far, a total number of 1, 20, 000 samples have been tested at SCB Medical College and Hospital. 1,925 samples were tested only Saturday. As of now, steps have been taken on how more number of tests can be done, he added.
A total of 44,596 people have been tested for COVID-19 across the district. Of them, 37,101 are RT PCR tests and 7,495 are antigen ones. While a target has been set to carry out on an average 800 tests per day, 983 tests are being done, he claimed.
As COVID training plays a vital role, SCB’s 249 doctors and 273 nurses have been given training. For our Plasma bank, plasma collection is also going on. So far 138 plasma units have been collected from 69 donors. Of them, 104 plasma units have been sent to other COVID hospitals in the state. The recovery rate in the district stands at 66.03 per cent. And the fatality rate is 0.01 percent, informed the collector.
PNN
