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No Beds Packed Morgues: Mumbai Hospitals Near Collapse

2020-07-06T20:42:16Z

DamienIhd2099413: Created page with "The state-run Lokmanya Tilak hospital has become a byword for the stunning failure of Mumbai to cope with the pandemic Packed morgues, bodies in wards, patients force..."

The state-run Lokmanya Tilak hospital has become a byword for the stunning failure of Mumbai to cope with the pandemic Packed morgues, bodies in wards, patients forced to share beds and medical workers run ragged: Mumbai's war against coronavirus has pushed the Indian city's hospitals to breaking point. Ravi, 26, had to change his mother's diapers himself as she lay dying from the disease in the huge Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital, better known as Sion. "They would just give us medicines and leave," Ravi (not his real name) told AFP. Staff in the 1,300-bed facility were "overworked and tired", he said, with sometimes three patients per bed. Now he too has contracted the virus and is in another hospital -- but only after four facilities refused to admit him. "We don't have the infrastructure for this disease," he said. The state-run Sion hospital has become a byword for the stunning failure of Mumbai -- home to billionaires, Bollywood and slums -- to cope with the pandemic. A video widely shared on social media and shown on Indian TV showed corpses wrapped in black plastic left on beds in a ward where patients are being treated. Authorities said they were investigating the footage. - 'So many cases' - With space at a premium, and relatives too afraid or unable to claim their dead because they are themselves in quarantine, disposal of coronavirus corpses is not easy, doctors say. But dealing with the sick is much harder. "We don't have enough beds to manage so many cases. The emergency area gets full in a matter of hours," Aditya Burje, a junior doctor working night shifts at Sion hospital, told AFP. The hospital's proximity to India's biggest slum Dharavi makes it a key battleground in the fight against the pandemic. Dr Deepak Baid volunteered to help at a state-run medical facility as coronavirus gained ground "In March there were just one or two suspected cases a day. It all seemed to be under control. Then the situation drastically changed," the 25-year-old said. By the end of April, Burje and his colleagues were overwhelmed. "We were seeing 50-100 patients a day, 80 percent of whom would turn out to be positive and many would need to be on oxygen," he said. Like many doctors at state-run hospitals, Burje, who gets a $700 monthly stipend, has not been paid since India went into lockdown in late March. He has not had a night off in two months. With nearly a third of his medical school cohort at the hospital diagnosed with coronavirus, he admitted he was scared to go to work. "If something happens, who will take care of me?" - 'System exploding' - Sion hospital is not alone in India's financial capital. And everyone -- from medical students to doctors with decades of experience -- is struggling. Intensive care specialist Deepak Baid, who runs a private hospital in north Mumbai, volunteered to help at a state-run medical facility, Rajawadi Hospital. But though it is only equipped to handle patients with moderate symptoms, doctors there routinely end up treating critically ill people, Baid said. A 1,000-bed field hospital is under construction to help deal with the increase in Covid-19 patients Even clinicians specialising in fields like dermatology or orthopaedics are being hit with caseloads of patients they are not qualified to treat. "We can't send (patients) to other better-equipped hospitals because they have no beds and so we do what we can," he told AFP. "The system is under a lot of pressure, it's exploding," he said. Flimsy protective equipment has made sanitation workers fearful of tackling tasks such as changing sheets used by coronavirus patients, Nilima Vaidya-Bhamare, another doctor, told AFP. - 'Utterly neglected' - Mumbai has 4,500 beds for coronavirus patients, [https://sites.google.com/view/empowering-parents-in/home sites.google.com] according to Daksha Shah, a senior health official with the city authority. "We are expanding capacity all the time," she told AFP, pointing to efforts to build a 1,000-bed field hospital in a commercial hub. Authorities are also setting up intensive care units inside schools. But with Mumbai so far registering around 18,000 cases, a fraction of its 18-million-strong population, fears are growing that India's worst-hit city is unprepared for a potential surge. India spends less than two percent of its GDP on healthcare. As of 2017, India had 0.8 doctors per 1,000 people, around the same level as Iraq, according to the World Bank. China has 1.8 per 1,000, and the United States 2.6. Many of the problems highlighted by the pandemic have been festering for a long time, Vaidya-Bhamare said, from a lack of basic supplies such as soap to overburdened staff. "I graduated in 1994 and government hospitals were utterly neglected then," she said. "Why does it take a pandemic to wake people up?"

India Records Biggest Single-day Jump In Coronavirus Cases

2020-07-05T23:57:46Z

DamienIhd2099413: Created page with " NEW DELHI, June 13 (Reuters) - India reported its biggest single-day jump in coronavirus cases on Saturday, adding 11,458 confirmed infections and taking the its total cou..."

NEW DELHI, June 13 (Reuters) - India reported its biggest single-day jump in coronavirus cases on Saturday, adding 11,458 confirmed infections and taking the its total count to more than 300,000, according to data from the federal health ministry. India is the fourth-worst affected country in the world, having surpassed the United Kingdom on Friday, with cases steadily increasingly despite a nationwide lockdown that began in late March and [https://beroyaltravel.webnode.com/blog/ beroyaltravel.webnode.com] has since been loosened. Confirmed cases in the worst-hit western state of Maharashtra moved past the 100,000 mark, data showed on Saturday. The national capital New Delhi, where the health system has also been reeling, saw more than 2,000 new cases. Despite the rising case load, the recovery rate of patients was improving, with more than 147,000 people having been cured, the federal government said on Friday. India has 145,779 active cases, and has recorded 8,884 deaths. (Reporting by Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Kim Coghill)

India Domestic Air Travel To Resume May 25 After Virus Shutdown

2020-07-05T22:12:47Z

DamienIhd2099413: Created page with "Passengers buy bus tickets in Amritsar as public bus services resumed in India's Punjab state on May 20, 2020 Domestic air travel will resume in India on May 25 after..."

Passengers buy bus tickets in Amritsar as public bus services resumed in India's Punjab state on May 20, 2020 Domestic air travel will resume in India on May 25 after a two-month shutdown imposed to stop the spread of coronavirus, the aviation minister said Wednesday, in a further easing of national lockdown restrictions. The government halted all domestic flights -- which ferried 144 million passengers as well as cargo across the vast country last year -- on March 25, [https://songsjack69.wixsite.com/mysite/post/jabalpur-the-marble-city songsjack69.wixsite.com] days after suspending international flights. "All airports and air carriers are being informed to be ready for operations from 25th May," Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Twitter. No indication was given when international travel would resume. A limited number of interstate Indian trains -- on a network which normally carries over 20 million passengers a day -- resumed a week ago. An additional 200 passenger services -- 100 pairs of trains operating to and from major and some smaller cities -- would resume from June 1, Indian Railways said late Wednesday, adding that online bookings would start from Thursday. The announcement comes the same day as the country of 1.3 billion people reported its biggest daily jump in coronavirus infections, with 5,611 new cases recorded in 24 hours. It took the total to 106,750, with financial capital Mumbai the worst-hit city, according to government figures. More than 3,300 people have died -- though unofficial estimates are higher -- and Mumbai accounts for almost a quarter of fatalities. Other major cities such as New Delhi and Ahmedabad are also badly affected. - Hospital bed shortages - Migrant workers and their families queue to register for inter-state trains in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, after the Indian government began easing lockdown restrictions Mumbai authorities are looking to requisition thousands of private hospital beds, with state-run care facilities overwhelmed in the city of 20 million people. "A plan is under consideration to take over 80 percent of beds in private hospitals for non-COVID cases," Mumbai city spokesperson Vijay Khabale-Patil told AFP. With some virus patients reportedly sleeping on the streets outside hospitals waiting for beds to become free, authorities say they need to boost the 5,000 available for critically ill patients. Mumbai has already had to build makeshift field hospitals and turned several landmarks into quarantine facilities, including a 19th-century horse-racing venue, a sports stadium that was used to host NBA games last year and a planetarium. There are fears the start of the monsoon next month and the spread of diseases like dengue fever will add to the burden. The capital New Delhi, also home to 20 million people, has likewise been badly hit. It now has more than 10,000 cases and while authorities have confirmed only 160 coronavirus deaths, media reports -- citing cemetery records -- say there have been almost triple that number at least. Gujarat state's largest city, Ahmedabad, has meanwhile recorded 8,945 cases with nearly 600 deaths. Experts predict the epidemic will worsen in the major cities over the next month and infections are only expected to peak in June or July. Despite the crisis in cities, the Indian government has insisted it is keeping the spread under control in the world's second-most populous nation.

India Re-opens Despite Record Virus Infections

2020-07-05T19:07:18Z

DamienIhd2099413: Created page with "Hindu devotees wait in lines to pray at the Jhandewala temple in New Delhi after certain lockdown restrictions were eased Malls and temples opened across India on Mon..."

Hindu devotees wait in lines to pray at the Jhandewala temple in New Delhi after certain lockdown restrictions were eased Malls and temples opened across India on Monday after a 10-week lockdown, despite a record daily rise in new cases and predictions that the epidemic will worsen for weeks to come. The government has risked easing restrictions in a bid to ease the devastating blow to the economy dealt by the coronavirus. But the number of new cases rose by 9,983 to 256,611, according to government figures announced Monday, putting the country of 1.3 billion on course to quickly overtake Britain and Spain among nations with the highest number of infections. The reported death toll of 7,135 is lower than other badly-hit countries, but India's epidemic is only expected to peak in July. Many experts say the toll is higher. Customers could shop at Select CITYWALK mall in Delhi after the government eased a lockdown In the capital, Delhi, shopping malls, restaurants, temples and mosques re-opened for the first time since March 25. But highlighting the city's reputation as one of India's worst coronavirus hotspots, one day after announcing the reopening, [https://justpaste.it/2akio justpaste.it] Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal went into isolation with virus symptoms including a fever. - 'Rough it out' - The worst traffic jams in many weeks were seen in the city of 20 million people. But the public response to being able to shop and pray was tentative. There was only a trickle of people at most places of worship. Businessman Mohit Budhiraja, wearing a mask and carrying sanitiser, went to his local temple in eastern Delhi for the first time since the lockdown. Customers in Bangalore restaurants sat at tables divided by screens "It felt like something was missing when I couldn't come to the temple for all these weeks," he said. "I hope things improve, but now I will come every day." Many temples set up sanitisation tunnels at entrances and barred worshippers from bringing offerings. "People are having their temperature tested twice before they get in," said Ravindra Goel, a trustee of the Jhandewalan temple, one of the oldest in Delhi. The 400-year-old Jama Masjid mosque, one of the biggest in India, planned only three prayers a day instead of the usual five for Muslims. Worshippers also had to bring their own prayer mats. India's familiar auto rickshaws returned to the streets in Kolkata after lockdown restrictions were eased Shopping malls also imposed tight checks at entrances and social distancing in stores. Owners acknowledged they would have to wait to see normal business levels return. "This will last for at least two months, we will just have to rough it out," said Mahendra Singh, owner of a clothes franchise in one mall. - Major hit - Delhi accounts for more than 27,600 cases and 761 deaths -- although media reports say the real figures are much higher. Shamika Ravi, an economics professor whose daily data analysis on the crisis is widely followed, said Delhi's deaths have risen "alarmingly". The city government has ordered that hotels and banquet halls remain closed as they could be turned into hospitals. Authorities have faced several complaints by relatives of people who have died before a hospital would accept them. Authorities say up to 15,000 extra beds could be needed by the end of the month. "Citizens must be provided with real-time information on nearby testing labs, quarantine facilities, hospital bed availability," said Ravi. "Fear and panic can only be dispelled by honest communication." Catholic faithful keep their distance in the congregation at Saint Joseph's Church in New Delhi Mumbai accounts for around a fifth of India's cases and hospitals have been overrun. Authorities have been more cautious about lifting restrictions. Roadside shops reopened, but malls, restaurants and hair salons remained shuttered. The Indian government says the tough lockdown has limited the spread of the coronavirus. But it is now braced for a major hit to the economy, with millions of labourers now jobless. Rating agencies have said the economy could contract by more than five percent this year, after average growth of about seven percent over the past decade.

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2020-07-05T19:07:14Z

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