With the third wave declining in the State, Karnataka’s COVID-19 Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) has recommended that henceforth, all hospitals — both government and private — should provide COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 services on a daily and continual basis.
“The third wave of COVID is on the decline in Karnataka. However, there is no certainty that the pandemic is likely to end soon. Hence, to ensure that patients are not put to hardship, TAC after due deliberations recommends that all hospitals in the State, both government and private, should henceforth make arrangements to provide both COVID and non–COVID services on a daily and continual basis,” stated the TAC’s 154th meeting report.
Sources said Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai during his recent meeting with experts had also pointed out the hardships caused to patients requiring non-COVID care. Moreover, in 50% of those with comorbidities, COVID finding was incidental when patients were being treated for another comorbidity or associated disorders, sources said.
TAC chairman M.K. Sudarshan said the committee’s recommendation was to ensure that patients are not denied non-COVID services in hospitals under any circumstances. “Those needing life-saving emergency medical services, if asymptomatic, should not be subjected to COVID testing. This will only delay and deprive the needy patients of timely medical care. The ICMR’s advisory on purposive testing strategy has also said this and all hospitals should mandatorily follow it,” he said.
Citing an example, he said, “If a patient goes to the State-run Institute of Nephro Urology for dialysis and tests positive for COVID, the patient is as of now sent to Bowring and Lady Curzon Medical College and Research Institute or C.V. Raman Hospital, the designated COVID facilities. But if there is a COVID ward in the Nephro Urology institute itself, such patients can undergo dialysis there,” he said.
“We will have to learn to live with the virus now. A new normal has to be put in place and this will be helpful not just for the patients but also for the healthcare system. The COVID ward can be similar to an isolation ward with separate entry/exit or appropriate arrangements,” the TAC chairman said.
K. Ravi, Professor and Head of the Department of Medicine at Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute, who heads the State’s Clinical Experts Committee, said it is essential to provide COVID and non-COVID treatment together in all hospitals now as most patients are incidental COVID positive.
“A COVID ward in every hospital can help in the treatment of the primary disease as well as COVID. As of now a lot of patients with comorbidities or who have suffered renal/heart failure are testing positive incidentally when they go to hospitals for treatment of the comorbidity. Instead of referring them to the designated COVID facilities, it will be appropriate to treat them in the same hospitals,” he explained.
C.N. Manjunath, nodal officer for labs and testing in the State’s COVID-19 task force and member of State’s Clinical Experts Committee, said each hospital should have a designated COVID ward on a separate floor or block and continue with non-COVID services.
“As of now, patients requiring COVID admission are very less. So there is no point in designating an entire hospital for COVID. Moreover, because of the pandemic there is a huge backlog of patients requiring surgical or other interventional procedures. Non-COVID deaths are more in numbers than COVID fatalities. If there is a resurgence of COVID and if there is a need to provide additional beds, more non-COVID beds can be converted into COVID beds in a short time,” the doctor said.
