By Sharon Thambala

Bengaluru, Jul 18 (IANS): Scores of asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic Covid patients are unnecessarily flocking private hospitals for admission, causing bed shortage to deprive those patients who really need hospitalization, said a doctor on Saturday.

"Hospitalization is not required for most of the asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic cases but in a state of panic they are rushing to tertiary care hospitals, depriving beds for the real serious Covid patients in need," told a city-based doctor working in a renown corporate hospital to IANS.

Sharing information of what really is happening in the hospitals, he said many such patients come from the middle income groups and above who can afford the treatment, spending their own money or making use of the company offered insurance covers, though they do not actually need hospitalization.

Incidentally, many patients are also showing up at hospitals with the recommendation of VVIPs when all the medical establishments are stressed and stretched.

"One of the reasons could be because they do not want the civic body officials to come home to stick a notice about an infection and drive them to a Covid Care Centre (CCC), attracting a lot of stigma in the neighbourhood," he said.

Admonishing all such cases to be accommodated at home, he suggested that only those people who do not have the facility for home quarantining be shifted to CCCs, as well as creating awareness in the masses that everybody does not need hospitalization.

"First convince the asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic patients that they can be treated at home. They are scared of the civic body drama and hate going to a CCC," he said about the chaos currently gripping the city hospitals.

He said hospital beds are also unnecessarily being occupied by VIPs, VVIPs and similar others.

For better management with an objective to make beds available to the real needy, he said only those Covid patients who are referred by a fever clinic should show up at a tertiary care hospital.

Meanwhile, the government ordering to reserve 50 per cent beds for Covid patients is a big ask said the doctor, pointing at the deprivation non-Covid patients are suffering currently.

"We used to operate on 100 people a day which is now reduced to less than half in the pandemic," he said, explaining that an operation theatre now requires three hours to be made ready, compared to only 45 minutes in earlier times.

Similarly, he highlighted that tertiary hospitals such as Apollo, Manipal, Columbia Asia, HCG and others are well equipped to treat non-Covid diseases like cancer, heart ailments, kidney problems and others which now are filled with non-serious Covid patients occupying beds.

Incidentally, the medical workforce is highly strained in the pandemic times, forcing hospitals to divide departments into teams so that if a doctor from a team tests positive, the other team can step in to keep the services up and running as the infected team gets quarantined.

Likewise, he said the press and the media is unnecessarily blowing things out of proportion and suggested toning down the rhetoric to not scare the masses as the state's Covid mortality rate is only 2.05 per cent.

According to the medical professional, there is sufficient medical infrastructure in the city but so much of unnecessary hospitalization is occurring, creating artificial scarcity of beds and other facilities.

The doctor has also expressed concern that relevant department professionals such as community health specialists should recommend suggestions to the government but not unrelated experts from disciplines such as cardiology.

"They are just capitalizing on the opportunity to publicise themselves. The community health department head of Bangalore Medical College is the one who should guide the government, not cardiologists," he pointed out.

In these emergency times, he said it is easy to convince doctors to work assuring all care and protective equipment but not the paramedical staff who left the city in droves.

"As hospitals' own workforces are getting infected, many hospitals have converted one floor of their facilities to treat their own staff, further reducing the number of beds available," he said.

Complaining about patients' behaviour, the doctors revealed about some of them who do not report their Covid status but get admitted on some other pretext to later reveal they are Covid positive, imperiling everybody who came in contact with them.

On Friday, Revenue Minister R. Ashoka said the Chief Minister B. S. Yediyurappa had emphasized on the prevention of complications in hospital admission.

"He (Yediyurappa) emphasized on the prevention of complications in hospital admissions," said Ashoka, in-charge for managing private hospitals amid the pandemic.

Ashoka said that asymptomatic cases should be immediately discharged. According to the minister, the chief secretary will issue an order to this effect soon.

Meanwhile, R. Om Prakash Patil, Director, Health and Family Welfare Services said his department's teams are visiting hospitals to check the menace of unnecessary hospitalization.

"We will come to know by Sunday or Monday. We are going to individual hospitals and checking them. We are also finding out whether they are admitting necessary patients or only positive patients without any symptoms," Patil told IANS.

He said the health commissioner has issued a circular not to admit asymptomatic patients and let them be in CCCs.

"Patients are going to private hospitals out of fear, we have to convince them and ask them to stay in this thing (CCC). Permission has been given to private hospitals to make their own CCCs if they only need to do observation and monitoring. They can tie up with private hotels and monitor those patients. We are checking it," said Patil.

Bengaluru is the epicentre of the pandemic in the southern state, hosting 62 per cent of all the active cases.

On Friday, the city reported 2,208 cases, increasing its tally to 27,496, out of which 20,623 are active.