<p>As hospitals worldwide are bracing for a possible onslaught of coronavirus patients with pneumonia and other breathing difficulties, tertiary care hospitals in Kashmir have started augmenting the poor critical care facilities with additional life support systems.</p>.<p>Super-specialty SKIMS hospital in Srinagar on Friday received 20 ventilators, the first batch of the 50 it had recently placed an order for. Medical Superintendent SKIMS, Dr Farooq Jan said the ventilators will be allocated for the isolation ward, meant to provide life support to critically ill COVID-19 patients.</p>.<p>The dearth of ventilators at SKIMS, Kashmir’s premier healthcare institute, has for long been a weak link in the healthcare delivery in Kashmir. Currently, the 800-bedded SKIMS has just 38 ventilators.</p>.<p>A senior doctor at the hospital said the over-burdened facility often has to refuse critical patients for dearth of life-support systems. “With the current capacity, it was impossible to handle patient flow for COVID-19. The most important thing right now is to plan ahead and start mobilizing all the resources at hospitals,” he said.</p>.<p>However, the doctor said, procuring ventilators was as imperative as training staff to run these. “Our anesthesia department is so taxed that running the additional ventilators with existing staff would be impossible,” the doctor said and added that Kashmir’s healthcare systems need to put in “intensive efforts to train manpower” to prepare for COVID19.</p>.<p>As per an advisory by the union ministry of health and family welfare (MoHFW), “medical infrastructure needs to be prepared for any possible influx of patients on account of COVID-19.” The SKIMS currently has an 11-bedded isolation facility, with ventilators only for four of these. In addition, there are 20 beds in the quarantine facility.</p>.<p>At Government Medical College Srinagar, the shortage of ventilators has been breaking the critical care facilities at the seams. At the largest hospital of the medical college, the SMHS, there are only 13 ventilators while the bed capacity is 850. In the two other main hospitals under GMC Srinagar– Super Specialty Hospital and Chest Disease Hospital, there are 20 ventilators in all, only 16 of these dedicated for patients with H1N1 or COVID-19.</p>.<p>In the most severe cases, the coronavirus damages healthy tissue in the lungs, making it hard for them to deliver oxygen to the blood. Ventilators feed oxygen into the lungs of patients with severe respiratory problems through a tube inserted down the throat. The machines are also used routinely to help other hospital patients breathe, namely those undergoing surgery while under general anesthesia.</p>
<p>As hospitals worldwide are bracing for a possible onslaught of coronavirus patients with pneumonia and other breathing difficulties, tertiary care hospitals in Kashmir have started augmenting the poor critical care facilities with additional life support systems.</p>.<p>Super-specialty SKIMS hospital in Srinagar on Friday received 20 ventilators, the first batch of the 50 it had recently placed an order for. Medical Superintendent SKIMS, Dr Farooq Jan said the ventilators will be allocated for the isolation ward, meant to provide life support to critically ill COVID-19 patients.</p>.<p>The dearth of ventilators at SKIMS, Kashmir’s premier healthcare institute, has for long been a weak link in the healthcare delivery in Kashmir. Currently, the 800-bedded SKIMS has just 38 ventilators.</p>.<p>A senior doctor at the hospital said the over-burdened facility often has to refuse critical patients for dearth of life-support systems. “With the current capacity, it was impossible to handle patient flow for COVID-19. The most important thing right now is to plan ahead and start mobilizing all the resources at hospitals,” he said.</p>.<p>However, the doctor said, procuring ventilators was as imperative as training staff to run these. “Our anesthesia department is so taxed that running the additional ventilators with existing staff would be impossible,” the doctor said and added that Kashmir’s healthcare systems need to put in “intensive efforts to train manpower” to prepare for COVID19.</p>.<p>As per an advisory by the union ministry of health and family welfare (MoHFW), “medical infrastructure needs to be prepared for any possible influx of patients on account of COVID-19.” The SKIMS currently has an 11-bedded isolation facility, with ventilators only for four of these. In addition, there are 20 beds in the quarantine facility.</p>.<p>At Government Medical College Srinagar, the shortage of ventilators has been breaking the critical care facilities at the seams. At the largest hospital of the medical college, the SMHS, there are only 13 ventilators while the bed capacity is 850. In the two other main hospitals under GMC Srinagar– Super Specialty Hospital and Chest Disease Hospital, there are 20 ventilators in all, only 16 of these dedicated for patients with H1N1 or COVID-19.</p>.<p>In the most severe cases, the coronavirus damages healthy tissue in the lungs, making it hard for them to deliver oxygen to the blood. Ventilators feed oxygen into the lungs of patients with severe respiratory problems through a tube inserted down the throat. The machines are also used routinely to help other hospital patients breathe, namely those undergoing surgery while under general anesthesia.</p>
