Remote Covid ward in Chhattisgarh tells new story of demise, despair

IN OCTOBER final 12 months, when the Covid caseload was peaking throughout the nation, Bemetara in Chhattisgarh recorded 1,000 instances. On April 1 this 12 months, the district’s log of lively instances confirmed 6,300. By April 12, it had surged to 9,700.
Bemetara’s numbers seize in a nutshell the influence of the second wave of the pandemic within the state. And its lone Covid ICU facility — 8 beds on the district hospital — the injury and despair that it has prompted.
Two of these ICU beds are vacant now. But that’s as a result of the occupants succumbed to the virus on Monday.
Chhattisgarh presently has 98,856 lively instances. “In Bemetara, we are getting more than 200 cases in a day. They are coming from everywhere,” says a district well being official.
“The patients have all shown a similar pattern. Because of months of lull, they thought Covid was over. Even after they started showing symptoms, they thought it was common flu and didn’t turn up at the hospital until the last minute,” says a senior physician on the district hospital.
The panic is clear on the face of 27-year-old Rupesh Sahu exterior the Exclusive Covid Care Center. He stops anybody who steps out sporting a PPE equipment to ask about his mom Renuka, 47, who was admitted to the ICU on April 5, simply three days after she took a Covid take a look at.
“She had gone to Durg to see my sister who had delivered a baby. I told her not to go inside the hospital, but she fought with me and went. She is the only one who got infected…my sister and her baby are fine,” says Sahu who hails from Bhendani village.
Renuka’s chest x-ray report reveals intensive congestion, which is an indication of superior an infection.
According to the district’s Medical Health Officer, Dr Satish Sharma, there’s a rising inflow of instances from neighbouring districts. “Durg and Raipur are two districts where a high number of cases are being noticed. Bemetara, being at a junction of sorts between the two, sees a lot of intermingling across the borders. People from here also work in those two districts, and are now returning,” says Sharma.
Another ICU mattress is occupied by 50-year-old Kavita Kumari Dewangan. In the common Covid ward close by is her daughter Tarnini Dewangan, 32, a mom of two who’s present process remedy after a short stint within the ICU of her personal. Both of them work as seamstresses for an area garment producer whereas additionally working a tailoring enterprise of their very own on the aspect.
Speaking to The Indian Express over cellphone, Tarini says: “We had several orders since it is the season of weddings and festivals. I fell ill first, but my mother started getting worse faster than me. Both of us were hospitalised on April 3.”
Tarini, who can also be from Bhendani village, says she nonetheless has excessive fever by the nights whereas her mom is on oxygen help. “I don’t know what is happening at home, I haven’t seen anyone from my family. I just want to go home,” she says.
Her mom’s neighbour within the ICU is Ram Krishna Sharma (60) from Majhgaon village which, together with Bhendani, falls in Berla block close to Durg. “He has hypertension and diabetes. He came to us when the symptoms were already out of control. He is critical, and we are trying to keep his vitals in control,” says a Covid staffer.
Two different beds within the ICU are occupied by Devdutt Sharma (54) and his spouse Anusuiya (45). Both have co-morbidities, and had been referred from a hospital in Bhilai. Says their son Pravin Sharma, 30: “My father was undergoing treatment for typhoid. When he started facing difficulty in breathing, we admitted him to a hospital, where he tested positive. There was no space in Bhilai hospitals, so we were shifted here. Soon after, my mother tested positive, too.”

Two ICU sufferers — Baburam Verma (56) and Dhanesh Verma (42) — died Monday, inside 48 hours of being admitted. “We have been having cases of patients who have died while we were administering help. For Dhanesh, his blood oxygen level had dropped to 30 per cent,” says a nurse.
Given the surge, sources are stretched to the utmost, say docs and staffers. “We are working with 75 per cent supplies and without a specialist or anesthesiologist. All of us are doing multiple roles to minimise wastage and ensure that we can save all those who come here. It is stressful. I have not spent even one full day at home in the past two months. It was like this last year as well, but the caseload has increased manifold this time,” says a senior official on the Covid centre.

According to the official, the hospital has a newly constructed oxygen plant contained in the campus, however there’s a scarcity of the crucial drug remdesivir. “We have to decide whom to administer the drug because the course is for six days. More supplies are expected soon,” the official says.
With solely two ICU beds vacant, the hospital workers say they’re improvising with no matter is offered. “We have managed to make some of the HDU (High Dependency Unit) beds into high intensive care beds, akin to ICU beds,” says Dr Aarti Dutta, advisor on the district hospital.