COVID-19 In West Bengal: Doctors Alarmed At Sudden Surge In Daily Cases, Fear For Worst Ahead

Kolkata: West Bengal has witnessed a steady rise in daily COVID-19 cases and toll as fresh 8,426 cases and 38 deaths were registered on Monday. On Sunday, there were 8,419 fresh cases with 28 deaths compared to Saturday’s 7,713 cases with 34 deaths.

The health experts have assigned the exponential rise in positive cases to the elections in the state. Large public meetings with utter disregard to Covid appropriate behavior contribute to the spread of the virus. Coupled with lack of adequate vaccines and Remdesivir, the state is barely managing to cope with the crisis, they pointed out.

The Calcutta Medical College and Hospital, one of the biggest government hospitals in the state, had 500 Covid beds and they have increased it by another 112. They plan to add another 400 beds soon.

Assistant superintendent of the hospital Kazi Gowsas Salam said they have got an advisory from the government to ramp up the Covid bed strength to 8,000 beds. “We have space crunch and making way for 8,000 beds would mean cutting down on general beds. The hospital also has 250-bed children care ward, which has now been converted to children Covid ward,” he said.

AMRI Hospitals, which is one of the major private hospitals in Kolkata treating COVID-19 patients and had a dedicated building for positive patients last year, currently has 244 beds for Covid patients and around 400 beds for non-Covid patients.

The hospital has three Covid vaccination centres (CVC) at Dhakuria, Mukundapur and Salt Lake, where they were vaccinating around 900 people daily till last month. On Monday, the hospital vaccinated 778 people across the three CVCs.

Hospital sources said they have conducted around 600 tests per day in the last three days. Last week, they carried out 400-450 tests per day.

Rupak Barua, group CEO, AMRI Hospitals and president, Association of Hospitals of Eastern India, said, “Soon, the hospital lobby or parking space will have to be converted into Covid facility. We are also discussing how fast hotels can be converted into hospital beds. The healthcare facilities are crumbling.”

Commenting on the present surge, Dr Sayan Chakraborty, infectious diseases specialist, AMRI Dhakuria, said, “The current situation is very grave. We request all political parties to immediately stop rallies and campaigns in any manner that breaks social distancing.”

Another city hospital, Medica Super Specialty, is also treating Covid patients. They have 220 Covid beds in the hospital and additional 72 at its annexe, while they have non-Covid 140 beds.

Dr Alok Roy, chairman, Medica Group of Hospitals, also showed his concerns at the sudden spurt in positive cases. He said, “We have a serious problem. In fact, we are swimming in the mud.”

Dr Roy said RT-PCR tests went through the roof in the last week. “We were doing 150-200 RT-PCR tests, now we are doing 1,250. Around 500 people are coming to the hospital everyday on OPD for RT-PCR,” he said.

Dr Suvro Banerjee, cardiologist at Apollo Hospitals feels that the second wave is much more potent than the first one. “Many patients, who came for treatment but showed no signs, turned out to be positive after tests were done at the hospital. The exposure is also increasing. I feel the situation is worse than what it was last time. The healthcare system might collapse any moment,” said Dr Banerjee, who got his RT-PCR test done on Tuesday.