Covid-19: India has 1.4 beds per 1000 people; Bengaluru, Pune top with 3.5

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As the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic keeps on surging, patients throughout the country are desperately hunting for oxygen, hospital beds, and essential medicines such as Remdesivir.

The scarcity of hospital beds in every city is so acute that one needs to be a super influencer or luck on his/her side to get a hospital bed. Lakhs of patients are compelled to remain at home due to the unavailability of beds in the hospital.

Recently a study conducted by a real estate aggregator in top cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad revealed the woefully low count of beds in these.

Tragically low

According to the study, Pune and Bengaluru are the most equipped city in India on the availability of hospital beds, offering only 3.5 beds per 1,000 people. The figure takes into account both private and public healthcare centres.

This is the highest figure anywhere in the country. These two cities are followed by Ahmedabad that has nearly 3.2 hospital beds per 1,000 people.

Chennai coming next in the pecking order with 3 beds per 1,000 population and Hyderabad has 2.9.

The country’s commercial capital Mumbai offers every 1,000 of its residents only 2.2 beds.

National capital Delhi and Kolkata are at the bottom of the heap with 2 beds per 1,000 population.

The national average is only 1.4 beds per 1,000 population including both private and public sector hospital beds. This is far lower than the global average of 4 beds/1,000 population.

The states

As a state, Karnataka comes at the top with 5.3 beds for every 1,000 people.

Telangana, Goa, and Kerala jointly occupy the distant second spot with a 2.9 beds/1,000 population.

At the bottom of the league of states is Bihar with only 0.3 bed/1000 population.

Jammu, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, and Jharkhand have only 0.7 beds per 1000 population.

Big states such as Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh have 0.8 beds, 1 bed, 2.2 beds, 2.1 beds, and 1.5 beds respectively per 1,000 people.

Global picture

According to World Bank data considering, only public hospital beds, Japan stands at the top with 13.5 beds per 1,000 population, followed by Germany with 8 beds and France with 5.9.

The US and the UK have 2.9 beds and 2.5 beds per 1,000 people respectively.

India stands at the bottom with only 1 bed for 2,000 people or 0.5 bed for every 1,000. This figure pertained to January 2021.

If both public and private hospitals are taken into considerations, the availability of beds in India creeps up to 1.4 per 1,000.

Expert Take

Not only on the parameter of beds, but India also ranks at the bottom too on the number of doctors. This country has only 0.9 doctors per 1,000 people whereas the global average is 2.5-2.8 doctors per 1,000 people.

“The picture is really grim. We are fighting with the handicap of abysmally low beds and a number of doctors. Going by the rush for hospital beds, a minimum of 8-10 beds per 1,000 population is needed everywhere,” said Sabyasachi Saha, senior neurosurgeon at Kolkata’s state-run Bangur Institute of Neurosciences.

Officially, however, the occupancy of hospital beds in the public sector is quite low.