New Delhi: Long queues outside hospitals, lack of availability of beds for Covid-19 patients, not enough medical oxygen and patients gasping for breath. These horrific stories and visuals emerging from the national capital have only added to the dreariness the new, and far more ferocious, Covid wave has brought in.
Amid all this gloom and doom, however, there is a tiny sliver of hope for Delhi — the 500-bed Commonwealth Games Village Covid Healthcare Facility.
The facility, which accepts moderately ill Covid patients, is starkly different from the state of most hospitals at this point, which are reeling under the pressure of being overcrowded and functioning beyond capacity.
Neat and tidy, with 24×7 availability of doctors and nurses to attend to patients, along with low-flow oxygen beds, the facility is offering a well-equipped alternative for Covid patients. With a team of 10-12 doctors, 15-16 nurses and 10 sanitation workers on shift at any given time of the day, the processes seem fairly smooth.
And above all, last Tuesday, the healthcare centre became the first in Delhi to get its own oxygen plant. It now plans to add more plants.
Ideal for moderately ill patients
The facility, run by the Delhi government along with NGO Doctors for You, was started in July last year. However, it was shut down in late December when the first wave waned.
The complex was reopened on 19 April to patients with moderate symptoms and 90 SpO2 (oxygen level).
The complex’s own oxygen plant, meanwhile, allows it to now accept patients even with 85 SpO2. The small, make-shift O2 plant has the capacity of generating 150 litres of oxygen every minute and can support 15-18 patients.
There’s a person deputed to constantly monitor the plant in case anything goes wrong, and provisions have been made to ensure uninterrupted oxygen supply from the plant in case of a power interruption or any other technical error.
“We already opened 15 more beds at the facility in the morning and 4-5 patients who need oxygen support have already been admitted here. If this plant proves to be successful, we’re planning to install 4-5 more which will increase the intake of patients who need O2 support,” said Sunil Kumar, the nodal officer of the isolation facility.
Around 150 beds, with no O2 support, at the facility were also lying vacant. Kumar stressed how this isn’t a hospital and can’t treat critical patients. “We are not a hospital but an isolation facility and can admit moderate patients here. We don’t have the necessary resources to take care of critical patients,” he said.
The facility also has an ambulance service ‘Rakkshak’ to ferry patients from the gate to the sports complex in case of an emergency.
Ram Chandra, who works as a house help in Delhi, spent 14 days at the facility and found it well-managed and neat and clean. “A doctor would see me twice a day — in the morning and evening. Meals were provided timely and so was medication. Though I wasn’t very sick, it helped me recuperate and I liked my time there,” he told ThePrint over the phone.
The facility is also free of cost which helps those who can’t afford hospital bills seek timely intervention and help.
Also read: India should brace for a third Covid wave, it is inevitable, scientific advisor to Modi govt warns
A neat and clean facility
Some laudatory WhatsApp messages of patients who have been admitted to the facility have also gone viral. That is essentially because of how spic and span the centre is, unlike the idea of hospitals and healthcare facilities one tends to harbour.
According to the staff at the facility, the district administration has been cooperative and has supervised the running of the facility well.
A look from outside the facility shows that hygiene is maintained rigorously and healthcare workers take continuous rounds. Patients are given blankets, pillows and a mosquito net while in isolation. They have round-the-clock medical care with trained doctors prescribing them medicines, injections and other necessary treatment that they might need to recuperate quickly.
The centre has also taken care of the nurses and other paramedic staff. A separate air-conditioned hall has been set up for them to rest.
Healthy meals available
Breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner are also served to patients who can also order things like coconut water from the canteen if they so wish.
The food is prepared and packaged in a neat and meticulous manner. “We make meals as per the needs of the patients, and we make about 400 meals every day for patients and other staff at the facility,” said a staffer in the kitchen who didn’t wish to be named.
The kitchen has also made provisions for its workers to stay at the facility itself. “We’ve provided our workers with the option of staying here because they have a long commute and also are scared of going home every day since they come to work in a red zone,” the staffer added.
The teething troubles
However, the facility isn’t without its share of problems.
One problem with the facility is the registration process. Often, the guards standing on the gate turn you away, and one has to fight their way in to get to even speak to the help desk. After that the process of admission is long and arduous with many standing in lines to get their patient admitted.
These, however, seem largely like teething troubles for now.
Also read: CT scan is like 5-10 x-rays, not 300-400: Docs’ body refutes Guleria’s ‘unscientific’ comments