Gandhi Hospital ready to meet Omicron wave

With Covid infections driven by the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 rising, the ground zero of the two previous waves in Telangana, Gandhi Hospital, is on a state of alert and has completed preparations to treat critical Covid-19 infections. While there is a general agreement among public health officials in Telangana that hospitalisations during the Omicron-driven Covid wave could be less when compared to the Delta wave, authorities at Gandhi Hospital do not want to leave anything to chance.

Given the experience of having treated highly critical patients in two subsequent Covid waves and being the top multispecialty State-run tertiary care hospital in Telangana, the senior management at Gandhi Hospital are anticipating a rise in admissions, especially among Omicron positive infections with comorbid conditions.

As a result, all-out preparations were underway during the last few weeks to ensure critical healthcare services were ready for the probable surge. “Everyone is expecting Omicron to be mild. However, from our experience, we can say that the nature and behaviour of the SARS-CoV-2 virus vary from person to person. 

At present, we can’t anticipate that Omicron variant could be mild for everybody in Telangana. In the last two



waves, we saw many healthy individuals succumbing to Covid and at the same time we have also seen 100-year-old patients recover,” Gandhi Hospital Superintendent Dr M Raja Rao said.

Given the multispecialty status where all super-specialty medical departments are available, senior health officials said Gandhi Hospital was expected to provide ICU care, which was the case during the second Covid wave driven by the Delta variant.

“We have gained a lot of experience and our doctors and other healthcare workers are ready to meet challenges in the next wave due to the Omicron variant. For the past two years, it is the month of March where we have seen the rise in infections and this year too, perhaps a Covid surge could occur,” Dr Raja Rao pointed out.

During the two previous Covid waves in Telangana, 84,000 Covid patients were treated at Gandhi Hospital.

“While we are proud of our Covid services during the first and second waves, the fact remains that SARS-CoV-2 virus is complex. Covid patients might recover quickly, but there are possibilities of long-term complications. The best thing that anybody could do is to avoid getting infected,” Dr Raja Rao pointed out.