Viral outbreak among elderly, kids, planned surgeries fill up city hosps
Times of India | 23 January 2025
12 Kolkata: A spread of multiple viral infections and a glut of planned surgeries led to a rise in occupancy across Kolkata's private hospitals, with the elderly and children forming the bulk of the patient load. The deluge of patients forced one hospital to add beds while another turned away patients sporadically due to lack of beds. At least two others are bracing for a bed crisis and are ‘rationalizing' admissions to ensure that emergency patients are not refused.
Occupancy across all units of Narayana Hospitals is ‘very high', according to COO R Venkatesh. "It was 85% at RN Tagore Hospital last week and is expected to rise in the coming weeks. At the Howrah unit, the occupancy is around 70%. It is expected to rise this week," added Venkatesh.
Woodlands Hospital is fully occupied, and its critical care units have been choked for several weeks. "There is now a waiting time even for patients who need planned surgeries. This was triggered by a spurt in respiratory and cardiac diseases, and most of these patients are elderly," said CEO Rupak Barua.
Ruby General Hospital reached an occupancy of 89% and is staring at a bed saturation in a week. An occupancy of more than 90% is taken to be full occupancy since 7%-8% of beds are reserved for isolation units and emergencies. "Our occupancy has been very high for over a month, and we are crawling towards full occupancy. Very soon, we will have to start using the reserve beds as well," said chief general manager (operations) Subhashis Datta.
He added that elderly patients with respiratory ailments, pneumonia, and children with infections such as respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), rhinovirus, and bronchitis form most of the patients. "There has also been a spurt in planned surgeries, which is normal at this time of year. But this time, it has been coupled with respiratory diseases," said Datta.
Over the past 10 days, BP Poddar Hospital has been operating at full occupancy, necessitating the refusal of several admissions daily. "A significant section of our beds is currently occupied by patients with respiratory illnesses like COPD and chronic bronchitis. Unlike surgical cases, which generally have a predictable duration of stay, respiratory cases show considerable variability. We have already expanded our respiratory ITU and are exploring the possibility of increasing the overall capacity by 5%," said group advisor Supriyo Chakrabarty.
Charnock Hospital has an occupancy of 72%, which has been steady for weeks. "We have been receiving a steady stream of patients with viral infections, especially respiratory infections in the case of elderly patients. Occupancy has been rising steadily, and we expect a major spurt by the end of Jan," said Charnock emergency head Nishant Agarwal.
At Manipal Hospitals, occupancy has been high across all five units due to the ‘usual seasonal illnesses' at this time of the year. "With over 500 ICU and HDU beds across five units, we are equipped to handle the surge," said regional COO Ayanabh Debgupta.
Desun Hospital is now operating at around 80% occupancy. "Fortunately, we do not have a bed crisis at this time, and we are well-equipped to handle the existing patient load while still having the capacity to admit new patients," said Shaoli Dutta, director of Desun.