Madhya Pradesh needs more High-dependency unit (HDU) and Intensive care unit (ICU) beds and ones with oxygen as Covid-19 cases have increased in the state alarmingly during the unlock period in the past seven weeks. Active cases of coronavirus too have shot up in this period, as per a health department’s report.

As per the health department’s bulletin released on Saturday night, the state Covid-19 tally rose to 38,157 with an addition of 859 patients identified in the past 24 hours while the number of active cases stood at 8,827.

When the lockdown was lifted in the state on June 16, albeit restrictions continuing on Sundays and several districts going on with extended lockdown besides night curfew continuing across the state, the tally of Covid-19 patients in the state was 10,935 while the fatalities stood at 465 had died. The active cases in the state stood at 2,567.

Statistically, while the period from March 20, when the first Covid-19 patient was reported in the state to June 15, saw a Covid-19 patient almost every 12 minutes, during the unlock period since June 16 has seen a new Covid-19 patient almost every 5 minutes on an average in the state. In the past fortnight, the situation further worsened with coronavirus affecting more people as a result of which every 1.70 minutes a new Covid-19 patient was reported.

Similarly, while the lockdown period reported the death of a Covid-19 patient every 4.54 hours, the duration of a Covid-19 patient being reported dead during the unlock period so far has been reduced to every 2.53 hours. During the past fortnight, every 1.83 hours there was death of a Covid-19 patient in some part or the other of the state.

As per a report of the health department, as many as 13 districts of the state, including major Covid-19 spots like Indore, Bhopal, Jabalpur, Gwalior, need as many as 5,474 HDU beds by the end of August, whereas the availability of such beds is 907 as of now. There are 2,307 beds planned to be added by August 31. Thus, there will still be a gap of 2,260 HDU beds as on August 31.

Similarly, Gwalior, Bhopal and Indore need 2,626 additional isolation beds with oxygen and 864 ICU beds.

In all, the state’s requirement as on August 31 would be 21,904 isolation beds without oxygen, 7,301 isolation beds with oxygen, 5,474 HDU beds and 1825 ICU beds. The calculation is based on the presumption that 60 percent of the active cases don’t need beds with oxygen, 20 percent of the patients need isolation beds with oxygen, 15 percent need HDU beds and remaining 5 percent need ICU beds, as per the report.

However, the state has 20,340 isolation beds without oxygen and it may have a gap of 1,564 such beds as on August 31. They may also be a gap of 2,260 HDU beds and 254 ICU beds as on August 31 even after the planned activities of the department to create more such beds. However, there may be 1,917 isolation beds with oxygen in excess to the demand by the end of the month.

Public health experts Amulya Nidhi said, “Almost five months after the Covid-19 outbreak in the state, the health infrastructure is not well equipped to tackle the situation. At the same time, there are reports about patients being made to overstay in certain private hospitals despite their recovery from the disease. The government must make public a comprehensive report on when a patient was hospitalised, when was he cured and when was he discharged and from what facility- government or private. Also, there should be a transparency in data as to who all died and in which hospital.”

Rachna Dhingra, founder member of a Bhopal group for information and action, an organisation working for Bhopal Gas Tragedy victims, said, “Shortage of beds is being felt even now. Some patients were turned away from some hospitals but the state government itself is compounding the situation by sending to hospitals even those people who test positive in rapid antigen test (RAT) whereas they should be sent to the hospitals only after they test positive in real-time RT-PCR (Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction) tests.”

Additional chief secretary (ACS), health department, Mohd Suleman said, “We started working in a right direction long back in ramping up our fever clinics, testing and hospital facilities besides a door to door survey campaign. Still we are ramping up our capacity to treat patients who get infected and continue to treat everyone free if they want it. The result of our efforts can be gauged from the fact that in terms of active cases Madhya Pradesh stands at the 15th spot from the top in the country. Also, the fatality rate which stood at 10.3 percent as on April 3 has come down to 2.9 percent.”