NE NEWS SERVICE
AHMEDABAD, NOV 23
Nearly 60 health workers at a civil hospital in Ahmedabad, the largest COVID-19 facility in Gujarat, are currently infected by coronavirus amid a recent spike in cases across the city, officials said on Monday.
The civil hospital’s medical superintendent, J V Modi, said with this, around 430 doctors, nurses, and other staff of the facility, including paramedics and sanitation workers, have contracted COVID-19 so far since the outbreak of the disease in March this year.
Three of these staff members – a nurse and two sanitation workers – died of COVID-19, he said.
The civil hospital, located in the Asarwa area and having a capacity of 1,200 beds, has seen a rise in the number of new COVID-19 patients since the last week, with several of them in moderate and severe health condition and requiring oxygen, officials said.
“Around 60 health care workers are currently under treatment for COVID-19 after testing positive for the coronavirus. They are either in home isolation or hospitalised, as per the requirement,” Modi said.
The hospital’s Additional Medical Superintendent Rakesh Joshi said the recent spike in the number of COVID-19 patients has also led to a significant increase in the consumption of medical oxygen.
He said over 800 beds at the COVID-19 hospital are occupied, and the number has come under control after treatment facilities were created in other hospitals.
“Since last one week, the number of patients with moderate to severe COVID-19 condition is increasing. There were around 95 such patients on Sunday. These are the patients who require oxygen,” he said.
“Following the rise in the number of patients with moderate to severe coronavirus, we need to fill our 20,000-litre oxygen tanker twice a day,” Joshi said.
The city is seeing a sudden surge in COVID-19 cases, with the number of infections going past the 300-mark every day, straining the hospitals treating such patients.
The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) is working to requisition more private hospitals to increase the number of beds available for treatment, officials said.
