Private hospitals in Delhi are witnessing a gradual pickup in occupancy levels, which had fallen significantly in January when people avoided elective procedures over fear of Covid infection.
Hospitals said they are getting back to normal after a torrid time last month. There is a marked improvement in occupancy in the last three days with Covid-19 cases in the capital and the region receding.
The average daily occupancies for Max hospital in Saket was 68% during January 1-15, which further dipped to 65% in the second half of the month, a Max Healthcare spokesperson said, adding that similar trends were seen in the group’s other hospitals as well. While an improvement is now visible, hospital executives said they are still reeling under stress due the pause in elective surgeries and international medical tourism. They expect operations to return to normal by the end of this month, provided Covid cases continue to drop.
According to Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, the occupancy goes down in peak winters, but this year was unusual.
“Usually we have 80-82% occupancy which went down to 50% last month. We do see a dip in non-Covid-19 times too during this time of the year, but this time there has been a bigger increase (in vacant beds), said the Apollo spokesperson. There was a 20% drop in occupancy at Fortis Hospital across its network.
India’s private hospitals and nursing homes account for more than 60% of beds at 850,000-900,000.
The hospitals have been investing heavily over the past few months in additional manpower, equipment, consumables and other resources to join the fight against Covid-19. However, for hospitals, the Omicron fuelled wave that gripped the country last month meant drying up of the usual inflow of patients.
Bracing for an influx of patients, hospitals also converted as much capacity as possible into isolation areas which remained unused as hospitalisation of Covid-19 patients remained low last month.
Improving footfall
The Max spokesperson said occupancy figures improved to 78% on February 2, “showing that hospitals are staggering back to normalcy”.
Indraprastha Apollo expects to reach the normal level in a week to 10 days. Fortis’ spokesperson said the situation is getting better. While 10% is back, the company expects normally to return by the end of February.
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