Armed Forces Medical Services deploys additional health professionals to fight current spike in COVID-19 cases

NEW DELHI: India’s Armed Forces Medical Services (AFMS) has deployed additional doctors, including specialists, super specialists and paramedics, at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (SVP) COVID hospital in Delhi to cater to the current surge in COVID-19 cases.

As against 294 doctors and health workers in 2020, 378 have been mobilised in 2021. These include 164 doctors in 2021 as against 132 doctors in 2020. Last year, only 18 specialists were mobilised, as against 43 specialists and 17 super specialists this year.

This year, the manpower mobilisation has been accomplished at a very short notice of three days only. The highly-skilled specialists and super specialists have been deployed in the facility this time from the already stretched resources from the service hospitals. By all considerations, efforts at SVP facility this year are more than last year and much faster as well.

This year, when the facility was reopened on April 19, 2021 with provision of 250 beds, all the 250 beds were occupied within two hours of opening the facility, owing to the enormous surge in COVID cases in Delhi. Of note, all these patients were critical and oxygen dependent. The critical patients admitted this time are in excess of more than 85% at any given point of time (more than eight times compared to last year’s worst peak).