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Despite treating most of the critical cases, district referral facilities get poor ranks
The health professionals were happy when a survey conducted by the Department of Health, Medical and Family Welfare revealed that the top 12 COVID-19 hospitals in the State are in Anantapur and the district ranked first with an average of 2016.82 points. However, their joy was short-lived when the officials went into the fine print of the survey.
Even as the average ranking is good, the three major hospitals— Anantapur Government General Hospital (GGH), RDT Hospital at Bathalapalli, and KIMS Saveera Hospital— which handled the maximum number of cases, majority of them critical patients had poor individual rankings while the hospitals in the smaller towns were in the top spots.
These three facilities, being district referral hospitals, treated the more critical patients and the number of deaths reported from these facilities was also higher and this worked against them in the overall rating.
Survey parameters
In the survey, points were awarded on various parameters such as the number of deaths reported, number of doctors available, availability of oxygen support, quality of food served to the patients and etc. The GGH, RDT Hospital at Bathalapalli, and KIMS Saveera Hospital have been treating the critical COVID-19 patients since March second week. The GGH got the ninth rank with 1966.55 points, while the RDT Hospital stood at the 12th place with 1636.5 points. KIMS Saveera Hospital, a private facility that was roped in for COVID-19 treatment on April 15 got the 10th place with 1943.25 points.
However, the Area Hospital at Kadiri has been adjudged the best hospital with 2346.5 points, followed by YSR Memorial Hospital with 2309.9 points.
These survey results disappointed the doctors’ fraternity and health personnel.
The RDT Bathalapalli has been the most sought-after facility for its quality healthcare service and it treated 5,123 patients till September 21. The facility reported 202 deaths. Hospital Superintendent Birru Praveen Kumar said 30 critical patients were on ventilator support and of them, only seven survived. but “A majority of the COVID-19 patients in the district were treated here. It is painful to see our rank being the lowest,” he said.
Number of deaths
Similarly, 2,848 patients were admitted to the GGH and 2,290 patients were discharged including the 108 patients in home isolation. The hospital has reported 341 deaths till date, said GGH Superintendent M. Ramaswamy Naik. “Of the patients treated, 79 needed oxygen support, 29 were in the ICU. At present, 15 patients are on the ventilator support. We treated more critical cases than the patients with mild symptoms,” he said.
The KIMS Saveera Hospital treated 704 patients and of them, 52 patients including 10 on ventilator support died. “In all, 418 patients needed oxygen support while the rest were treated as normal patients. An 85-year-old woman was also recovered from the infection,” said hospital managing director Kishore Reddy.