Private hospitals in Delhi ask for manpower, time for augmenting COVID beds

A leading private hospital has requested the Delhi government to provide it with paramedic and other heathcare workers to supplement its existing staff in manning the additional COVID beds being added to the facility, sources said on Tuesday.

The request has been sent by Fortis Hospital authorities nearly a week after the city government had ordered 22 hospitals to enhance bed capacity by 20 per cent to add a little over 2,000 additional COVID beds in total for patients.

Fortis Group's three hospitals located at Shalimar Bagh, Vasant Kunj and Okhla are among these 22 facilities.

"We have limited manpower, and the bed expansion has been ordered. It will difficult to get extra manpower, especially at this time since many heathcare workers are themselves falling ill after getting infected by COVID-19. So, we have requested the Delhi government for some paramedic and other staff," a source at the hospital said.

At Shalimar Bagh facility, Fortis had to expand the COVID beds from 52 to 100, while total COVID beds at Vasant Kunj and Okhla facilities after expansion would be 200 and 100 respectively, according to the government order.

Meanwhile, sources at Apollo Indraprastha Hospital said they have sought more time to augment the bed capacity.

"We have requested the Delhi government to grant us a bit more time to expand our number of beds as per the revised requirement, which is 300 COVID beds," a source at the facility said.

The existing capacity at Apollo hospital as per the order is 133.

However, a source at Max Healthcare said increasing the number of beds is a challenge but "we had prepared ourselves from day one, anticipating the growing requirements".

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal recently had said Delhi would need 1.5 lakh beds in healthcare facilities by July 31 once people start coming to the city for treatment from other states.

Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain had said that around 7,000 beds will be occupied by June 15, and 15,000 beds will be occupied by June 30. 

Delhi recorded 1,647 fresh coronavirus cases on Monday taking the infection tally in the city to over 42,000, and the death toll due to the disease climbed to 1,400.