LAHORE: The third spike of the coronavirus is putting a tremendous load of Covid-19 patients on the state-run hospitals in the major cities of Punjab, including Lahore, where bed capacity of some main facilities has already reached the maximum.

The situation has already turned alarming in some of the health care facilities in Lahore, particularly the Mayo Hospital, where according to doctors, all the beds, including those reserved for Covid patients in the intensive care and high dependency units have been occupied.

The other mega teaching hospitals in the provincial capital were denying admission to the Covid patients.

According to officials, young medics are exerting pressure on the respective managements of the hospitals to avoid risking lives of the staff by allowing too many Covid admissions to these facilities.

Mayo referring patients to Yakki Gate, Kot Khwaja Saeed facilities

The officials, seeking anonymity, expressed their apprehension that the Punjab’s major cities were heading towards the worst phase of the epidemic. They feared that under-reporting of new positive cases and related deaths during the third peak could create a health crisis in the province.

Mayo Hospital Medical Superin-tendent Dr Iftikhar Ahmad told Dawn the Mayo Hospital had reserved approximately 340 beds for the Covid-19 patients’ management. Of these, he said, 70 were provided to the patients in need of ventilators and other critical facilities. “Now, all these beds have been occupied”, he added.

Similarly, he said all the beds reserved in the HDUs where the patients were under treatment with high-flow oxygen supply system had no space left for more admission.

To handle the in-flow of Covid patients at the (Mayo) hospital, he said, the provincial health minister directed the authorities concerned to create more space in the attached teaching hospitals so that new arrivals could be diverted there.

“Now we have reserved 100 beds for the Covid-19 patients in the Government Yakki Gate Hospital and 25 in the Kot Khawaja Saeed Hospital Lahore”, Dr Iftikhar said, adding that the new patients were being referred there from the Mayo Hospital.

He said the two above-mentioned hospitals established on emergent basis high-flow oxygen system for the patients complaining shortness of breath.

“We have also activated central control system in the Mayo Hospital to update the Rescue 1122 and other teaching hospitals about the bed occupancy so that patients could be shifted to the health facilities having the required medical capacity and beds”, the Mayo Hospital MS said.

Meanwhile, an official of the health department said the infection was rapidly spreading in some major cities, including Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Jhelum and Sialkot.

He said the Punjab government should immediately declare a high-alert for the public sector hospitals, asking their administrations to expand on emergency basis the existing facilities to accommodate maximum number of critical patients.

Meanwhile, as per the official update on Wednesday, the virus claimed lives of 41 more patients during the last 24 hours in Punjab, taking the death toll to 5,851.

The total number of the confirmed cases has reached 189,362 after 1,137 more people tested positive for the virus during the same period in Punjab.

Most of the deaths and new cases were reported in Lahore, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Sialkot and Hafizabad.

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2021