Lack of ventilators in Chitwan amid increasing coronavirus patients

 

Bharatpur: With the increasing number of coronavirus patients in Chitwan, there has been a scarcity of ventilators and ICU wards in the district.

As of Monday, the number of coronavirus infected patients in Chitwan has reached 368 while three people have lost their lives.

Every day, around 40 new cases of coronavirus are being reported in the district. The patients also include people from other districts who come to Chitwan for treatment. There is one central hospital, one provincial hospital, two medical colleges, one cancer hospital and more than two dozen big hospitals in the district.

The preparation for the treatment is very slow despite increasing number of patients. The rural municipalities have recently started arranging isolation wards.

According to the data from the District Health Office, authorities had set up 2435 isolation beds four months ago.  There are 176 ICUs and 49 ventilators. There are 30 beds for ICU in Bharatpur Hospital. Among them, 10 beds are allocated for Covid-19 patients and 20 beds are for other patients.

Among the six ventilators at the hospital, two ventilators are used for Covid-19 patients.

“This infrastructure is adequate for the hospital during normal circumstances. But the infrastructure is very less for the current situation,” said Bhojraj Adhikari, chairman of the Hospital Development Committee. He informed that any hospitals in Chitwan has not added any isolation bed and ventilator during this period.