A row of cellphones are lined up on Saurabh Srivatava’s workplace desk. The Varanasi BJP MLA has employed 3-4 kids to take care of the misery calls, largely from members of the family of Covid sufferers, for oxygen, beds in hospitals, remdesivir and even RT-PCR checks.
“Last year, the demand was for food and transportation for the migrants coming back from other states. That was something we could manage. This time the demands are different. We are doing all we can, but sometimes even that is not enough. This second Covid wave has hit us with so much force. There have been several calls for oxygen, but we do not have enough oxygen points or cylinders. While building a hospital, people don’t install too many oxygen points because they never thought they would need it. This pandemic has caught us unprepared,” says Srivastava as he will get one other cellphone name — the fourth within the final 5 minutes.
It’s a name from an individual who has been ready exterior Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay Government Hospital in Varanasi with the physique of his relative for the final a number of hours, however is but to get an ambulance or a hearse van.
As of Friday, Varanasi district, which has 13 Covid hospitals, has 15,454 lively circumstances, the third highest within the state after Lucknow and Kanpur Nagar. In Uttar Pradesh, with 34,626 new circumstances and 332 Covid associated deaths in previous 24 hours, the variety of lively circumstances has reached 3,10,783.
While officers declare the state of affairs in Varanasi hospitals is healthier than these in Lucknow and Kanpur Nagar by way of oxygen availability and beds, they admit that given their infrastructure, they’ve little or no room for complacency.
“There is no question that the pandemic has caught us unprepared. The situation in Varanasi is already bad, with a large number of patients coming from neighbouring districts and other states. All hospitals have been stretched to their limits. Even during this second wave, when we having been struggling with lack of staff and resources, we are doing everything we can to save lives. But not sure how long we can do that,” mentioned a medical official, including that higher medical amenities in neighbouring districts would have eased up stress on Varanasi, Lucknow and a few of the larger cities.
Over 10 kilometres from the MLA’s home, exterior Sir Sunderlal Hospital that’s on the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) campus, an enormous crowd of persons are ready to offer their Covid take a look at samples — the following spherical of sampling will start solely an hour later. Outside one other counter are individuals ready to get their outcomes.
Every time well being employees in PPE kits take out a sealed physique from contained in the hospital’s Covid ward in direction of a ready ambulance, these ready to offer their samples rise up from the cement platform the place they’re sitting to get a greater view.
The facility, which claims to be geared up to check 10,000 samples a day, has solely been testing round 7,000 RT-PCR samples.
The super-specialty ward of Sir Sunderlal Hospital is the most important Covid therapy centre in not simply Varanasi, however for all of japanese Uttar Pradesh.
“We have around 2,300 beds in the entire hospital, and 400 of these are in the new super-specialty building reserved for Covid patients — 150 ICU beds and rest with oxygen facility. For the last several days, the occupancy has been almost full. Each day, around 35-40 patients move out — most recover, some can’t make it. When that happens, we admit new patients who are in line,” mentioned Sharad Kumar Mathur, Medical Superintendent of the hospital.
While the hospital was bracing for a affected person load from 13 districts, as of late, says Mathur, sufferers have been coming from round 20 districts of the state, apart from Bihar and Chhattisgarh.
While the hospital doesn’t have a liquid oxygen manufacturing plant, it has an oxygen reservoir of 30 kl capability, with the gasoline largely coming from crops in Bokaro and Jamshedpur.
“The first Covid wave was much easier for us to handle given that the requirement of oxygen and drugs was far less. But we made several important decisions that have come in handy now. This hospital was one of the first few facilities in the state to be turned into a dedicated Covid hospital last year. We started with just 30 basic beds, but we soon set up a 16-bed ICU and increased the number of beds to 110. Even after the first wave, we never reduced the number of beds. Another important decision was increase the capacity of our oxygen reservoir from 10 kl to 30 kl last October,” he mentioned.
Given that plenty of sufferers from exterior come to the hospital for therapy, the administration has determined to proceed virtually all non-Covid amenities, although it has ended up stretching the hospital to its limits. According to Mathur, round 110 of their healthcare workers — roughly one-fourth of the overall — are actively contaminated by the coronavirus.
Around 11 km away, the bottom ground of the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) Hospital, a Covid vaccination centre, is sort of empty round 3 pm. A safety guard says the vaccination course of that started at 9 am ended at 1 pm after all of the vials ran out. According to information on the Co-Win portal, as of April 30, at the least 2,92,036 vaccine doses have been administrated in Varanasi, with 57,744 having obtained each their doses.
On the primary ground of the hospital, sufferers, most of them with oxygen masks on, are mendacity on their beds whereas their attendants are mendacity on the ground, fanning newspapers to beat the afternoon warmth. In one of many rooms is Awadhesh Kumar Gupta, attending to his 83-year-old father.
“After he started having breathing problems, on April 13, we got an antigen test that returned negative. But his breathing trouble continued so I took him to a private hospital that started treating him for Covid. But his oxygen level fell to 82, and the hospital did not have liquid oxygen. I tried moving to another hospital, but at least 15 private ones said they have no beds. I finally brought him here that night. Here too, they told me to take him to BHU since he does not have an RTPCR positive report. However, by the grace of God, I pleaded with a senior doctor who was on a visit and finally we got a bed. He is recovering now,” mentioned Awadhesh, an advocate.
The authorities, which is being criticised for not doing a lot to strengthen healthcare infrastructure after the primary wave subsided, is now scrambling to construct three new oxygen crops in Varanasi — one every at Shiv Prasad Gupta Hospital, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital and Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital.
According to Varanasi Police Commissioner A Satish Ganesh, over the past ten days, the transportation of liquid oxygen from Bokaro and Jamshedpur by way of trains and street has helped additional.
However, the struggle for the valuable gasoline is particularly acute for sufferers in house isolation.
Outside an oxygen plant in Ramnagar, individuals anticipate hours within the scorching solar to get their oxygen cylinders refilled. After a current crackdown on black-marketing of liquid oxygen, refilling costs right here are actually fastened — Rs 500 for a much bigger cylinder and Rs 200 for a smaller one.
The oxygen crops at hospitals are anticipated to begin working in a month. Meanwhile, the traces exterior oxygen suppliers preserve getting longer.