Fewer patients now need admission: CM

nNEW DELHI: Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday said the number of Covid-19 patients in Delhi requiring hospital admission has been declining even as the state government announced that the number of intensive care unit (ICU) beds in three Delhi government hospitals has nearly tripled.

“Less and less people in Delhi are now requiring hospitalisation, more and more people are getting cured at home,” Kejriwal tweeted.

“Whereas there were around 2,300 new patients daily last week, no of patients in hospital has gone down from 6,200 to 5,300. Today, 9,900 corona beds are free,” he said in another tweet.

As per a statement by Delhi government issued on Sunday, ICU beds in the three major coviddedicated hospitals in the city – Lok Nayak (LNJP), Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) and Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality hospitals – have witnessed a 169% increase.

After a visit to the temporary Covid hospital set up by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), along with Union home minister Amit Shah on Sunday, Kejriwal said ICU beds are “very much needed at the moment” in the Capital. “For now, there is no scarcity of hospital beds, we have over 15,000 beds out of which 5,300 are occupied. There is a paucity of

ICU beds. If there is any spike in Covid cases, these ICU beds are very critical for us,” the CM said.

Delhi is on the cusp of reporting 100,000 cases with the city recording 99,444 cases by Sunday. The city has 3,067 fatalities so far due the viral disease.also, 71,399 people have recovered and 15,564 patients with mild symptoms were in home isolation, according to the Delhi government’s daily Covid bulletin.

In its statement on ICU beds, the Delhi government said, “The three-fold increase in ICU beds in Delhi’s three largest state-run Covid hospitals is a timely addition that will further strengthen the city’s fight against Covid-19. A few days back, Kejriwal had announced with adequate bed capacity in Covid hospitals, major efforts are underway to now increase the ICU beds.

“As a result of a continued push from the top, beds in LNJP have increased from 60 at the beginning of lockdown to 180 today. The number of ICU beds in Rajiv Gandhi Super Specialty Hospital has increased from 45 to 120, beds in GTB Hospital have increased from 31 to 66,” it said.

It further said, “With an increase in the ICU beds, the fatality rate in Delhi is expected to further reduce due to enhanced capacity to take care of critical patients. Over the last few weeks, the daily number of fatalities due to Covid-19 has gone down substantially from over 120 a day to 55 on July 4.”