Increasing the number of Covid beds in preparation for a third wave is essential but there should also be a comprehensive strategy to fight the disease that must include community sensitisation and public participation, public health experts have said.
This is the time, they said, to build networks of people who can be of help during a spike by improving communications and raising awareness among Covid patients to go to a healthcare facility at the earliest.
“An intensive-care only” approach is inadequate to handle a public health emergency of this magnitude.
“We need more awareness among people about the importance of taking help of healthcare experts at the earliest. This could have prevented a large number of deaths that had happened during the first and second waves,” said public health expert Abhijit Chowdhury.
He had earlier pointed it out in his presentation at a webinar organised by the Johns Hopkins University and the Indian Council of Medical Research.
In the middle of May, when more than 10,500 new Covid cases were being reported from Bengal daily, the state had 20,043 dedicated Covid beds in government and private hospitals. These included 2,711 ICU and HDU beds.
Out of these, on May 15, 41.08 per cent beds were occupied, according to the state health department data.
There was a severe crisis of beds in Kolkata at that time.
“There was a crisis of Covid beds in Kolkata’s private and government hospitals. But, it was not so in the suburban and rural areas where many people preferred to stay at home, fearing ostracism,” said Chowdhury.
Now, as part of preparations for the third wave, the state government has ramped up facilities.
On Monday, Bengal had 23,947 beds earmarked for Covid, out of which 2,861 were ICU and HDU beds.
Many private hospitals which have reduced the number of Covid beds have said they will ramp up the facilities if there is another surge.
Public health experts stressed that people should be aware and get treated at the primary stage of Covid infection.
“Doctors in our hospital are observing that again some patients are reporting late, spending several days at home despite testing positive for Covid. Their condition is becoming critical,” said R. Venkatesh, regional director, east, Narayana Health, which runs the RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences.
“During the second wave, when there were a huge number of fresh cases daily, people were scared and cautious, coming to the hospital at the right time. But now doctors are observing that many are dropping their guard because the cases are low and there are abundant beds available,” said Venkatesh.
Some hospitals said many Covid patients died during the second wave because shortage of beds in Kolkata delayed treatment.
“Many patients came after being unable to get admitted during the peak of the second wave. They were refused by many hospitals,” said Sudipta Mitra, the chief executive of Peerless Hospital.
Public health expert Chowdhury also said lack of community engagement and top-down policy had affected Covid management in India.
“We need to create a network of informal health workers who can be trained to raise awareness among people, especially in rural areas, and also keep track of people suffering from fever and other Covid symptoms,” Chowdhury said.
The informal health workers, he said, can be members of self-help groups and neighbourhood clubs and primary school teachers.
Doctors and public health experts had earlier repeatedly pointed out that many people had died of Covid after staying at home for days despite suffering from severe symptoms like breathlessness.
Cardiac surgeon and public health expert Kunal Sarkar has pointed out that India should have an epidemiologist lead Covid management. The fight against the disease will trip often in the absence of such an expert.
