With fears of rising demand of ventilators in view of coronavirus epidemic, tertiary care hospitals of Kashmir have started augmenting the poor critical care facilities with additional life support systems.
Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) onFriday received 20 ventilators, the first batch of the 50 it has recentlyplaced order for. The ventilators, medical superintendent of the hospital, DrFarooq Jan said, will be allocated for the isolation ward, meant to providelife support to critically ill COVID19 patients. As per an advisory by unionministry of health and family welfare (MoHFW), “medical infrastructure needs tobe prepared for any possible influx of patients on account of COVID19”.
The dearth of ventilators at SKIMS, Kashmir’s premierhealthcare institute, has for long been a weak link in the healthcare deliveryin Kashmir. Currently, 800-bedded SKIMS has only 38 ventilators. A seniordoctor working at the hospital said the over-burdened facility often has torefuse critical patients for dearth of life-support systems. “With the currentcapacity, it was impossible to handle patient flow for COVID19,” he said whilehoping that the newly procured systems would be made functional very soon.
The Institute currently has an 11-bedded isolation facility,with ventilators only for four of these. In addition, there are 20 beds in thequarantine facility. The Institute, Dr Jan said, is also procuring high-flowoxygen masks to prepare for COVID19.
At Government Medical College Srinagar, the shortage ofventilators has been breaking the critical care facilities at the seams. At thelargest hospital of the medical college, SMHS, there are only 13 ventilatorswhile the bed capacity is 850. In the two other main hospitals under GMCumbrella – Super Specialty Hospital and Chest Disease Hospital, there are 20 ventilatorsin all, only 16 of these dedicated for patients with H1N1 or COVID19.
Dr S Saleem Khan, nodal officer for COVID19 and head ofsocial and preventive medicine at GMC Srinagar said the scarcity of ventilatorswas going to get over soon. “We are expecting 30 ventilators,” he said. He saidthe ventilators were being provided under National Health Mission and would bespared initially for COVID19. “We are preparing,” he said while adding that itwould take a month to procure these systems.
However, a senior anesthesia specialist said procuringventilators was as imperative as training staff to run these. “Our anesthesiadepartments in both the institutes, SKIMS and GMC, are so taxed that runningthe additional ventilators with existing staff would be impossible,” he said.He added that Kashmir’s healthcare systems need to put in “intensive efforts totrain manpower” to prepare for COVID19. “We need trained manpower, not justmachines. Until that is done, these ventilators will be lying defunct,” hesaid.
SKIMS said it was training its staff, mostly residents andnursing staff from anesthesia and general medicine departments to operate theventilators.
Meanwhile, a separate flu-clinic was started today at SMHSHospital to cater to the suspected cases of COVID19. The clinic was started atthe ground floor of OPD block with ophthalmology and ENT departments.