After COVID-19 rush, Chennai hospitals on track to normalcy

Unlike throughout the first wave of COVID-19, a number of main hospitals in Chennai managed to concurrently run non-COVID-19 companies, besides having to droop elective surgical procedures. Now, with a gradual decline in circumstances, the variety of folks visiting outpatient departments is on the rise, and hospitals are all set to resume elective surgical procedures quickly.

Last yr, some main hospitals introduced their non-COVID-19 companies to a halt because the influx of sufferers recognized with COVID-19 began to rise. However, this has not been the case throughout the second wave — all main authorities hospitals ran outpatient companies by making different preparations.

E. Theranirajan, Dean of the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, stated they didn’t halt any non-COVID-19 companies throughout the second wave.

“Emergency services, as well as non-COVID-19 outpatient departments (OPD) and surgical OPDs functioned as usual in the last few months. Only the number of patients coming to OPDs reduced during the period. It reduced to 300-400 a day during the peak of COVID-19, and the numbers are gradually rising now. On Wednesday, we had nearly 4,000 people visiting non- COVID-19 OPDs,” he stated.

With the influx of contaminated folks — each OP and in-patient — decreasing, the hospital is slowly resuming common actions. “We have 130 admissions and around 160-170 outpatients for COVID-19 every day. We had stopped only elective surgeries, and those are now being resumed slowly,” he added.

At the Government Stanley Medical College (SMC) Hospital, outpatient companies have been shifted to the close by Bharathi Women’s College as quickly as COVID-19 circumstances began to rise. Separate groups of medical doctors have been posted for OPD companies, P. Balaji, Dean of SMC, stated.

“We have been handling emergencies, and OPDs have been operational throughout the second wave. We moved the emergency, trauma and TAEI wards to the diabetology block on the premises of the Institute of Social Paediatrics of the hospital. Similarly, the emergency operation theatre (OT) has been functioning in the paediatric OT,” he stated.

The variety of folks coming to non-COVID-19 OPDs has elevated to over 1,000, after declining to 400-500 a day. “Presently, the hospital has about 750 COVID-19 patients. By the end of this week, if the active caseload drops below 500, we will start doing non-COVID-19 work in full swing. Elective cases are yet to start at the hospital as there is a risk of patients contracting COVID-19 during hospitalisation,” he stated.

Venkatachalam, director of medical companies, Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, stated the hospital had resumed non-COVID-19 companies.

“Acute COVID-19 patient inflow has significantly reduced in the last 10 days. However, we continue to receive post-COVID-19 patients with complications. All stringent safety measures including screening for COVID symptoms are being continued to ensure that non-COVID-19 patients are not exposed to the infected ones. We have separate blocks for COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients. Therefore, there is no risk of exposure for non-COVID-19 patients. We have also ensured that there is no mixing of staff between COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 treatment areas,” he stated in a written response.

The influx of COVID-19 sufferers has barely diminished, Navin Gnanasekaran, affiliate director of medical companies, MGM Healthcare, stated. “Right now, we have started cardiology, general surgery and semi-emergency services. General medicine OPD was already functioning since COVID-19 started. We have started opening up certain OPDs, such as ENT and ophthalmology, due to the rise in mucormycosis cases. Cardiac surgeries and procedures in the cath lab are slowly being reactivated. We are slowly increasing surgeries and elective procedures,” he stated.

Health checks and dental and eye check-ups can be resumed ultimately, he added.