Nagaland: Marginal improvement in health facilities

Morung Express News 
Dimapur | May 3

After showing a fluctuating trend last week (April 26), the availability of health infrastructure to combat COVID-19 has been enhanced this week across the board as per the latest official data.  

A comparison data available on COVID-19 Dashboard for Nagaland on April 26 and May 2 showed that the while number of beds in designated COVID-19 Hospitals, ICUs, ventilators, protective equipment (PPEs) and N95 Masks increased marginally, the beds in isolation wards were considerably enhanced.      

 
The Dashboard (https://covid19.nagaland.gov.in), among others, has information on district wise availability of beds, Intensive Care Units (ICUs), Isolation Wards, Personal Protection Equipment (PPE), N95 masks as well as health personal on duty across the state.

Beds and ICU units
According to the Dashboard, a total of 464 beds were available in COVID-19 Hospitals across the districts with Kohima leading the pack with 90 beds on May 2.

It was 452 on April 26 and 432 on April 17. 

While there were decreases in Dimapur (84 to 76 beds) and Wokha (46 to 21), the number of beds in COVID-19 Hospital Tuensang was enhanced considerably from 9 last week to 54 on May 2. 

The most significant changes, however, was in terms of beds in isolation wards. 

From just 88 beds last week, it increased exponentially by 343% to 390. The fall in availability of beds in COVID-19 Hospital in Dimapur and Wokha can be attributed to corresponding increase in number of isolation wards—10 to 86 and 6 to 68 respectively. 

Beds in isolation wards increased across the district, barring Longleng, where only 5 were available. 

The availability of ICUs also increased to 64 from 59 last week. The addition can be attributed to addition of 3 in Zunheboto from zero last week and from 20 to 22 in Dimapur.  With 23 ICUs, Kohima led the pack followed by Dimapur 22 and 4 each in Mokokchung, Wokha, and Tuensang. Mon, Peren, and Longleng are yet to install any ICU units. 

Ventilators, PPE and N95 masks
After decreasing from 49 to 30 last week, availability of ventilators on May 2 increased marginally to 35 this week.
An increase from 2 ventilators to 4 in Mokokchung and 2 from zero in Mon, in addition to one each in Tuensang and Zunheboto resulted in the enhancement. 

However, it decreased from 2 to 1 in Phek while the district of Peren is still without one. 

In terms of ventilators, Dimapur’s share is still highest at 13, followed by 10 in Kohima.  After considerable enhancement last week, the availability of PPEs and N95 raised by few hundreds this week.

PPE increased from 20,535 to 20,740 PPE this week while 300 more N95 Masks were added (32,520 to 32,820). 

Heath Workers 
According to the Dashboard, a total of 500 Government Doctors were on duty as of May 2, up from 492 last week. Doctors on study leave decreased from 42 to 41 this week. 

After showing a decreasing trend last week (2,117 on April 17 to 1,990 on April 26), Government Nurses on duty almost returned to the April 17 level at 2,016.  38 nurses were on leave according the data on May 2.

 
Meanwhile, the Dashboard informed that a total of 1,88,806 migrants workers have been assisted till date. Out of this, 72666 were ‘local migrants’ while 66709 were ‘non-local.’
A total of 49,431 other needy persons have been assisted so far, it added.