Patient roams with oxygen cylinder in auto-rickshaw for 6 hours in search of ICU bed

Team Udayavani, Apr 19, 2021, 10:44 AM IST

Kalaburagi: A 55-year old female patient with an oxygen cylinder attached to her body roamed Kalaburagi city in an autorickshaw for nearly six hours searching for an ICU bed.

The woman in question was rushed to a private hospital after she complained of cough and respiratory complications, as there was no ICU bed available at the time, the hospital authorities provided her with an oxygen cylinder as emergency care.

The woman’s family members then took her in an autorickshaw to many hospitals searching for an ICU bed in vain.

When they did not get an ICU bed anywhere, they finally went to the district government hospital attached to Gulbarga Institute of Medical Sciences (GIMS). Since there was no ICU bed available at the GIMS hospital also, the woman was treated inside the autorickshaw itself for about three hours.

Finally, realizing the gravity of the patient’s condition, the GIMS authorities, somehow, managed to accommodate the patient in the ICU by adopting an additional oxygen flow meter to a machine that was already serving a patient.