Bed crunch forces Kolkata hospitals to sign patient-transfer pacts

KOLKATA: Several private sector healthcare majors in the city have started or are set to start planned patient-transfer schemes from one hospital to another to beat the problem of bed unavailability for Covid patients as well as for other emergency cases.
The surge in Covid patients has left hospitals bursting at the seams, resulting in many patients in need of urgent admission being turned away.At least three hospitals have now decided to hand-hold these patients and arrange for their admission either at a hospital or a nursing home in the vicinity to ensure they tide over the crisis. It has proved to be a life-saving effort on several occasions and promises to be a game-changer for the healthcare industry which is now under severe stress, say experts.
Narayana Superspecialty Hospital (NSH) launched the project a fortnight ago after it was forced to turn away some patients. It has deployed a dedicated team to help patients’ families find a bed elsewhere. The team has so far assisted more than a dozen patients get admitted at nursing homes and corporate hospitals in Kolkata and Howrah. Named ‘Samonnay’, the scheme will soon be extended to other units of Narayana, including RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences (RTIICS).
“With the surge in Covid numbers, we are facing an unprecedented strain on emergency services. With limited capacity in hospitals, often there is difficulty in accommodating all patients who come to the emergency. So, we have started this project where we have dedicated personnel in the emergency on a 24x7 rota who help patients in this regard,” said RTIICS zonal director R Venkatesh.
AMRI Hospitals, too, is ready with a similar ‘hub-and-spoke’ scheme for which it has roped in five nursing homes across Kolkata. He added that if the emergency and critical areas at NSH are full, new patients are assessed, provided first-aid and stabilized even as members of the assistance team contact other NH hospitals to accommodate them there. “If none of our hospitals has beds available, the staff contacts other hospitals in the city and coordinates a transfer of the patient after stabilization with due consultation and consent of the patient party. This ensures that all patients receive the care they need and don’t have to take the burden of hunting for beds in emergency,” Venkatesh explained.
AMRI Hospitals has entered into tie-ups with five nursing homes strategically located in areas close to its units at Dhakuria, Mukundapur and Salt Lake. “Scores of patients are being turned away since vacancies are now rare. From next week, they will be accommodated at these nursing homes and will remain under our supervision. Whenever necessary, we will provide specialists who will screen these patients and even visit them. We will provide nurses too,” said AMRI CEO Rupak Barua.
Another city private hospital said it was finalizing a similar scheme which it plans to firm up by next week.
Beneficiaries of the new arrangement are ecstatic. Twenty three-year-old Sourav Pramanik was wheeled into Narayana last week for an emergency gall-bladder surgery. Since there was no bed available, the assistance team arranged a bed for him at the nearby Lords nursing home. “My son may not have survived had the hospital not helped,” said his father Nikunja Pramanik. In the past few days, Narayana has got patients admitted at Fleming and Lords nursing homes and even one at BM Birla Heart Research Centre.
Narayana onco-surgeon Sourav Datta believes this networking between hospitals will help hundreds find beds and receive treatment despite the Covid-induced bed crunch. “It is the duty of hospitals and doctors to assist emergency patients. This can be done with a little effort and coordination between hospitals. We have showed the way and others will surely follow,” said Datta.
For smaller hospitals and nursing homes, it also makes business sense to be a part of the scheme. “We have received several Covid and non-Covid patients from Narayana, who would perhaps never have considered us,” said Bittu Singh, marketing manager of Fleming Hospital in Howrah.
The continuing spike in Covid patients has necessitated this coordinated admission facility, said AMRI Hospital consultant Debashish Saha. “Else, non-Covid patients, too, will suffer,” he added.
Medica Superspecialty Hospital chairperson Alok Roy pointed out that while the state government has been insisting that hospitals ensure that every emergency patient is stabilized before they are referred to another facility, unless there’s a central pool of Covid beds, patients will continue to be refused. “The bed crunch can’t be solved through individual efforts,” he said.