Cuttack: Amidst a rapid surge in COVID cases, some specific departments of Cuttack SCB Medical College and Hospital (SCBMCH) are facing a crisis in the form of shortage of beds for indoor patients. Health experts contend that floor admission of indoor patients could prove to be a major health risk and aid in the spread of COVID-19 infection in the days ahead.
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It is known that, many doctors here are unable to abide by COVID-19 guidelines, despite the fact that they have no other choice. With number of indoor patients increasing day by day, SCBMCH doctors are compelled for floor admission rather than dismiss the patients for lack of beds.
Notably, Hematology department has only 20 beds. As against this, over 80 patients are now being treated here, most of whom suffer from blood cancer and bone-marrow cancer. Facilities for treating such critical patients are hardly available elsewhere leaving hospital authorities in a quandary.
Due to lack of adequate communication, such patients are unable to shift to outside hospitals. Reacting to this, attendant Bhagirathi Samal of a patient who came from Ganjam district a week before said, “We have not yet got a bed and still lie on floor”.
Similarly, Nephrology department has only 60 beds and usually the patient footfall here is double the designated capacity. Nearly 40 persons including doctors, patients and their attendants have been detected COVID-19 positive in the past days with SCBMCH indoor patients and their attendants having demanded an immediate solution to the problem.
On being contacted, SCBMCH superintendent Dr Annada Prasad Patnaik avoided to give a comment, saying that he was bound by guidelines of the state government.
PNN