Fact-Finding committee finds serious problems at Bengaluru's COVID-19 hospitals

A fact-finding team of experts appointed by the Karnataka State government to ply it with recommendations to help restart non-Covid healthcare services in the city has discovered serious problems in three of Bengaluru’s major covid-designated hospitals.

The hospitals are Victoria Hospital, Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Chest Diseases (RGICD), Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital, plus a fourth, the Broadway BBMP Hospital (Infosys Hospital), which is still several months from completion.

The fact-finding committee was tasked with submitting recommendations as the government formulates its exit-strategy for treating non-COVID-19 patients. The report, which was submitted on Monday, revealed a grave lack of concern about the shortage of medical staff to cater the numbers of beds and services at Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital, and at RGICD, according to a source.

Major Problems

As per information received by DH, the committee began to observe challenges in how the three institutes coordinate with each other to distribute manpower where it is needed and for integrated referral services.

Staff and Bowring and Lady Curzon and RGICD, have reportedly informed the Committee that they do not get adequate manpower from the Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute (BMRCI) at moments of crisis. The committee was also informed that staff and students sent to RGICD were withdrawn without warning, despite requests.

A disproportionate bed allocation among the three hospitals is another major concern. The Victoria Hospital Complex (Bengaluru’s Covid-designate hospital) held the lion’s share, with 1,350 beds, including 800 inpatient beds at Victoria, 200 beds in PMSSY, 250 beds at Minto hospital and 100 at the ENT centre. Another 400 in-patient beds exist at Vani Vilas hospital.

However, due to the need to maintain physical distance in Covid-care, only 550 beds are available for COVID-19 patients at the complex.

Meantime, at Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital, which is a Dedicated Covid Healthcare Centre (DCHC), and accepts suspected COVID-19 cases plus SARI and ILI cases for testing, the situation is grave. All other speciality care at the main inpatient building has come to a grinding care.

At RGICD, which is also designated as DCHC, the committee found that the hospital has no anesthesiologists and intensivists to man ICUs.

While the hospital is still continuing to care for its tuberculosis patients, sources said that many patients have not been able to access treatment for TB during the lockdown, including those with drug-resistant tuberculosis.

‘Start Non-Covid Care Immediately’

The committee recommended the continued use of Victoria as a dedicated COVID-19 hospital, but proposed that essential non-Covid services should immediately start there after about 280 of the 550 Covid-beds are returned to non-Covid care. The recommendation also proposes a physical barrier separating the COVID-19 areas from the non-Covid wards.

A similar division of bed and staff resources was recommended for Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital, plus different exits and entry-points for Covid and non-Covid patients. At RGICD, the experts recommended scaling up Covid-care with 60 additional beds and fixing the problem of missing manpower, including the influx of Group D workers.

The committee also recommended that manpower resources, including interns, postgraduates, resident doctors and teaching faculty be equitably distributed across the four hospitals

When contacted by DH, several members of the committee confirmed that the report has been accepted by the government.

According to a source the government is anxious to fix a health-delivery system which has become overly focused on treating cases of the novel coronavirus.