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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · J Neuroanaesth Crit Care 2020; 7(03): 148-149
DOI: 10.1055/s-0040-1714184
Commentary

Transfer of Critically Ill COVID-19 Patients in Low-Resource Setting Hospitals: Are We Doing It Right?

Shraya Banerjee
1   Department of Neuroanaesthesia and Critical Care, Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, New Delhi, India
,
Nidhi Gupta
1   Department of Neuroanaesthesia and Critical Care, Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, New Delhi, India
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Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic in the year 2019–2020 has left us questioning the practices we follow for transferring critically ill patients from the ICU to radiological suites or any other step-up or stepdown facility. In our settings with limited resources, although separate areas for COVID-19 confirmed, suspected, and non-COVID-19 areas have been identified, a mix-up of patients is often encountered due to lack of space and trained staff. Moreover, with no separate corridor or lift for COVID-19 patient transport and a shared common route of movement inside hospital, there is high-risk of disease transmission among healthcare workers and bystanders. Here, we share our experience from a 718-bedded tertiary care hospital in India with 32 dedicated COVID-19 ICU beds.



Publication History

Article published online:
06 July 2020

© 2020. Indian Society of Neuroanaesthesiology and Critical Care. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

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