Kolkata: With a massive surge in the case of Covid, OPD footsteps in the hospital have dropped dramatically.
The decline in the number of non-covid patients began about a week ago.
On Monday, most hospitals saw a decline of 20% to 60% in the number of OPD patients.
They caught a number to go further when the pandemic surge continued.
“As far as the OPD, Monday should be the busiest day with the number of patients is usually higher.
But this Monday, we only have 352 patients who come to our OPD.
The gradual decline began in the last week of December and we began to pay attention to the drastic downswing from January 3 And so on, “said CEO of Peerless Hospital Sudipta Mitra.
The opposite hospital will have foot points around 600 patients a day.
On average, each Amri unit will get 500 patients’ daily footsteps before the pandemic surge.
Since the beginning of January, the three units only get around 100 OPD patients every day.
“There was a fall of about 30% in the number of OPD patients.
It seems that patients are wary of visiting hospitals because of the current Covid surge.
In fact, in CMRI, we currently have 110 covid patients, including 37 in the ICU, against 150 non-covid patients,” said Simmardeep Gill, CEO, CK Birla Hospitals.
Like CMRI, many hospitals plan to expand their digital consultant services so that patients who do not want to visit the hospital can get doctors online.
“The OPD presence has dipped 17% -20% over the past 10 days.
We will usually get around 1,300 patients every day, on average.
But now, footsteps are downswing and can fall further,” said R Venkatesh, regional director (East), Narayana Health.
The hospital said that the surge of Omicron had distanced patients from hospitals due to clusters in the health worker community.
Also, many consultants are currently in home insulation or hospital care after positive testing.
These doctors cannot see patients physically until they complete their compulsory quarantine period.
“We have started running our online consulting services during the second wave.
But because the situation gets better, the patient starts visiting the hospital.
Now, we will increase online consultation again to ensure the patient’s service continues,” said partner.
The government hospital has also witnessed about 30% of OPD attendance underwear.
Because a number of doctors, nurses, and other health workers are infected, some teaching medical universities have limited their patient’s care services, including planned operations.
“We have limited our OPD services and the majority of those who come are old patients,” said a source at Medical College Hospital, where more than 200 health workers have been infected.