A 58-year-old COVID-19 man of Dharan Sub-Metropolitan City-9 in State No1 died on Wednesday night at home-isolation.
He was receiving treatment at home after the BP Koirala Institute of Health Sciences (BPKIHS) ran out of an oxygen bed, said the family.
He breathed his last at 11 pm on that night right after reaching the hospital, said Ratna Katawal, ward chair of the Dharan Sub-Metropolis-9.
Similarly, an 89-year-old infected man of Dharan-2 died at home-isolation. His family was forced to keep him at home after the hospital lacked a ventilator for him.
A man, 52, of Dharan-8 contracted the infection at the hospital. He was admitted to the hospital a week ago for pneumonia treatment. He was receiving treatment at an emergency ward.
However, he died at the hospital after the hospital lacked a ventilator for him, the family of the deceased said.
As many as 13 infected people in Dharan Sub-Metropolis have died at home-isolation without their admission to hospitals, according to Umesh Mehata, Chief of the Health Division at the Dharan Sub-Metropolis.
The death toll from the infection in the State reaches 136 as of Monday evening, said the Health Division under the Ministry of Social Development in the State.
The total 66 infected people died at the hospital as of Tuesday morning, said Dr Aashish Shrestha, deputy-spokesperson for the BPKIHS.
Announcement of the state government to build 2,000-bed isolation wards has not been implemented so far. Local level has not been able to keep its word to build a hospital along with a 15-bed isolation ward at each local level.
In lack of well-equipped isolation wards, hospitals in the State are flooded with COVID-19 patients. Citing failure to endure the pressure of the patients, the BPKIHS administration suggested that the local levels impose lockdown.
The number of COVID-19 infected persons have spiked staggeringly lately. For the past one week, Dharan Sub-Metropolitan City has been witnessing an increasing number of COVID-19 cases.
On Monday, 89 persons were tested positive for COVID-19 while 206 persons were confirmed to have contracted the flu-like infection till that day.
Although the scope of PCR test has been contracted, the COVID-19 infection cases continue to increase. Medical professionals here are concerned about the possibility of surge in the COVID-19 cases since the public are found to have formed crowds in the marketplace without paying less attention to health safety measures against the infection.
The state government and local units do not seem to be prepared to respond to the pandemic despite the increasing rate of the infection. Hospital Director at the BPKIHS Prof Dr Gaurishankar Shah shared that the number of patients showing COVID-19 symptoms were on the rise lately. So was the case with the fatality from the deadly infection.
Around 300 health workers in the BPKIHS were infected with the Coronavirus.
“At such times, many COVID-19 patients could succumb to the infection in lack of ventilators. BPKIHS is also in dire need of ventilators. It is reeling under resources crunch,” said Dr Shah.
BPKIHS had procured 10 ventilators in total in assistance from the state government but only four were functional at this moment. Six of them were returned to the contractor companies for repair.
State No 1’s Minister for Social Development Jeevan Ghimire said that the state government was effortful for effective response to COVID-19.
Minister Ghimire said that the Embassy of Switzerland in Kathmandu had inked an agreement with the state government to provide necessary equipment and tools for the prevention and control of COVID-19 according to which 10 ICU sets would arrive very soon.
Furthermore, the private hospitals in the State were also instructed to arrange ICU room and ventilators in the isolation wards.
According to him, there were 8 ICU and five ventilators in the Koshi Hospital COVID-19 Treatment Centre, 15 ICU and 10 ventilators in BPKIHS and 10 ICU and 2 ventilators in Mechi Hospital.
Likewise, Nobel Hospital had 10 ICU and three ventilators, Birat Medical Hall eight ICU and 10 ventilators and Neuro Hospital eight ICU and two ventilators.
In total, there were 46 ICU and 32 ventilators in the state.
Similarly, there were 1,531 isolation wards in 33 places of the state. The state has recorded 13,988 COVID-19 cases of as Monday. Among them 6,039 have achieved full recovery.
As of Monday, 7,813 COVID-19 infected persons were availing treatment in intuitional isolation while the rest were being treated at home-isolation.
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