Hyderabad: Gandhi Hospital, the nodal Covid-19 care centre in the state, is out of ICU beds, including those with ventilators and continuous positive air pressure (CPAP) machines, health minister Etala Rajendar said on Thursday.
While the hospital has beds equipped with oxygen lines vacant, the ICU beds were all filled up, the minister told a news conference here on Thursday.
Explaining the reasons for the current state of affairs, Rajendar said that though the actual percentage of people requiring critical care remains at less than 5 per cent of all cases, their number is still high enough because of the overall high number of Covid-19 cases emerging in the state.
He also held private and corporate hospitals responsible for the situation in Gandhi Hospital saying that they were continuing to send patients who reach a critical stage to Gandhi Hospitals despite his appeals not to do so.
“In many cases we know that the patient might just survive for another hour. But we will not turn anyone back and we will give all possible care and treatment till the very end. It is for the private hospitals to behave responsibly and not send away patients when they turn critical,” he added.
Asked what the hospital was doing to find ventilator or CPAP beds for patients who need these, Rajendar said the government had taken over some beds in private medical colleges and was trying to accommodate such patients in those facilities.
