Pune: Sassoon General Hospital (SGH) authorities have urged all healthcare facilities and doctors to confirm ICU bed availability with them before referring critical cases.Sassoon draws patients from across districts and the state. Its ICU routinely runs at full capacity, yet receives daily referrals that strain resources and sparks confrontations between doctors and patients’ relatives. Lack of beds often also lead to deaths.SGH medical superintendent Dr Yallapa Jadhav said, ”Currently, the hospital has more ICU beds than the number prescribed by the National Medical Commission. Even then there is always a scarcity due to high demand. We request hospitals and doctors to verify with us about availability beforehand to avoid last minute chaos and ensure timely care for patients. It will also spare the families traumatic last-minute scrambles.”Jadhav said they often get calls from politicians and even senior officials for ICU beds for critical patients. “We are forced to refuse. We can arrange for general ward beds. However, in case of an ICU bed, we can allot it to someone else only when the patient occupying it is shifted, recovers or expires.”SGH dean Dr Eknath Pawar said critically ill patients from Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad as well as districts of Sangli, Satara, Kolhapur, Ahilyanagar and Beed are admitted to Sassoon. Currently, the hospital’s outpatient department sees an average of 1,629 patients daily. As many as 1,036 patients are admitted to the inpatient department.“ICU beds remain constantly occupied and there are typically five to six patients on the waiting list daily. A bed vacated due to a patient’s recovery or death is given to the next patient on the waiting list. We have in-house patients who are already in line. It is difficult to allow someone from outside to jump the queue. Patients who are critical are often referred from other hospitals at the last minute. Lack of available beds imposes severe limitations on us,” he said.A proposal has been submitted to the department of medical education and drugs to increase the number of beds by 60 — 40 for medical ICU and 20 for surgical ICU, he said, adding that efforts were underway to secure necessary additional manpower — including doctors and nurses.Meanwhile, Sassoon has launched a dedicated helpline number — 9225330535 — for critically ill patients, enabling relatives and clinicians to check real-time bed availability before sending patients. Relatives should register — either in person or via telephone — for a bed in ICU. The move aims to streamline referrals, decongest emergency wards and prioritise transparency.
