COVID-19 patients throng Tirunelveli hospital

All the 940 beds with oxygen facility are occupied by positive patients, mostly from nearby districts

With the COVID-19 positive patients being diverted to Tirunelveli Medical College Hospital (TVMCH) from all southern districts, the district administration and the doctors, postgraduate medical students and the nurses are under extreme pressure to find them beds and getting oxygen for most of these extremely critical patients to save them. As the number of positive patients getting reported in this region crosses 2,000 everyday, there is a need to create more beds in hospitals, particularly in government medical college hospitals. The first choice of most of the patients is the government medical college hospitals where they can avail free but quality treatment even as the private hospitals are charging in lakhs for treatment. New patients arrive at TVMCH everyday from the nearby districts even though they have their own medical college hospitals. The patients, on reaching the ‘triaging point’ at Gandhimathi School near Tirunelveli Medical College Hospital, are being screened to assess their health condition. If they are asymptomatic, they are sent for ‘home quarantine’ and those who have mild symptoms are taken to the COVID Care Centres while the severely affected patients get admitted in the TVMCH.