Every third Covid patient at Rajindra hospital dying

Karam Prakash

Tribune News Service

Patiala, May 14

Every third Covid patient admitted to the isolation wing of the Government Rajindra Hospital is likely to succumb to the virus, reveals official data. With around 30 Covid deaths a day, the fatality rate at hospital is 35 per cent. As per the hospital authorities, around 1,781 positive patients of 5,053 admissions have died of Covid since the pandemic broke out last year.

The death rate is much higher in the second wave when compared to the first, and continues to surge as of now. In May so far, 422 Covid patients have died. The figure stood at 415 in April and 113 in March. The number of recoveries at the hospital, tragically, is very low, say experts.

Hospital authorities have blamed the late reporting of the severe patients as the major reason for the rising Covid deaths at the hospital. In some cases, patients are even brought dead, adding to the hospital’s official toll, say the authorities.

Dr RPS Sibia, Head of the Department of Medicine, said, “Rajindra Hospital is a referral tertiary healthcare institute. Therefore, very sick patients are admitted to the hospital that leads to a higher number of fatalities. Moreover, compared to the first wave, the number of sick patients is three times higher in the second wave. Currently, around 240 patients, who are very sick, are undergoing treatment.”

Doctors at the hospital have claimed that the majority of the deaths so far have happened within the first 24 or 48 hours of admission as the oxygen saturation, in most of the cases, was at critical level. Last week, Medical Education Minster OP Soni had said if the admission of severe patients was higher, the death rate was bound to be on a higher side.

Given the availability of continuous oxygen supply, life saving drugs, and ventilators at the hospital, experts say the death rate is an unexpected one. The experts have also expressed concerns over the deployment of doctors, at the Isolation, other than that of core expertise: medicine, chest, TB and anesthesia.