More patients than beds in Mumbai amid surge in Covid-19 cases
As cases explode, even private facilities are at risk of being overrun
When Manit Parikh’s mother tested positive for coronavirus, she was rushed by ambulance to Mumbai’s private Lilavati Hospital, but officials told the family no critical-care beds were available.
Five hours and dozens of phone calls later the family found a bed for her at the private Bombay Hospital. A day later, on May 18, Parikh’s 92-year-old diabetic grandfather had breathing difficulties at home and was taken to the city’s Breach Candy Hospital, another top private facility, but there were no beds.
Later that day, they found a bed at Bombay Hospital but his grandfather died hours later. His test results showed he was infected with the virus. Parikh said he believes the delays contributed to his grandfather’s death. Officials at Lilavati and Bombay Hospital declined to speak with Reuters. Representatives of Breach Candy hospital did not respond to requests for comment.
For years, India’s booming private hospitals have taken some of the strain off the country’s underfunded and dilapidated public health network, but the ordeal of Parikh’s family suggests that as coronavirus cases explode in India, even private facilities are at risk of being overrun. More than a fifth of the country’s coronavirus cases are in Mumbai where the Parikhs struggled to find hospital beds for their infected family members.
Rapid efforts
The federal government has said in media briefings that not all patients need hospitalisation and it is making rapid efforts to increase the number of hospital beds and procure health gear. India has 0.5 beds per 1,000 people, according to the latest data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, up from 0.4 beds in 2009, but among lowest of countries. In contrast, China has 4.3 hospital beds per 1,000 people and the US has 2.8. “In our country, health care has never gotten priority,” said Dr Adarsh Pratap Singh, head of the 2,500-strong resident doctors association at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.