The rich bring hospitals to their homes

No hospital rooms? Create one at home. Wealthy Indians, whether infected by Covid or fearing infection, are taking private healthcare to the next level by buying advanced medical equipment like non-invasive ventilators and setting up ICUs at home.And like in the case of oxygen concentrators, stocks of these more high-end medical equipment, as well supply of medical professionals, is also fast depleting, home healthcare service providers say. Companies are struggling to meet a sudden spike in demand. A non-invasive ventilator cost Rs 50,000 to Rs 2.5 lakh, depending on brand and configuration. And running a home ICU costs around Rs 15,000-25,000.82363032CEOs of five home healthcare companies said the demand for these equipment and services is up by almost 100% in the last 5-7 days. Medical equipment manufacturers now fear that India will run out of supplies of non-invasive ventilators such as BiPAP and CPAP machines due to sudden high demand.“From basic Covid care at home for mild patients, we are now flooded with requests for intermediary care for moderate patients since availability of a hospital bed has become a real challenge,” said Vishal Bali, co-founder at Mahindra-funded home healthcare provider Nightingales. “Anything to do with oxygen and lungs are now in high demand,” he said. The company is receiving over 80 such requests per day.Half of these requests are from patients who are already down with Covid and the rest are from those wanting to set up intensive care units (ICU) at home.For HealthCare at Home, a company co-owned by the Burmans of Dabur, requests to set up advanced care facilities at home have gone up 20 times. Chief operating officer Dr Gaurav Thukral said the demand is so high at Delhi NCR, that it had to stop the service and instead set up a temporary Covid care facility. “It is not possible to service this high demand of Covid care at home. We encounter the VIP syndrome of throwing names around….people are ready to pay any amount of money. But a home ICU is not a replacement for a hospital ICU,” said Thukral.Requests for non-invasive ventilators have started to flood social media as well. Several dealers and manufacturers said they are sold out, especially in Delhi NCR. BPL Medical has completely sold out its stock. Rajiv Nath, forum co-ordinator, Association of Indian Medical Device Industry, said people are buying non-invasive ventilators to create home healthcare set up, while some are even buying for patients admitted in hospitals which may have run out of stock.Hyderabad-based ventilator manufacturer DVB InvenTek founding partner Darshan Bhatia said demand for ventilators is almost 100% more than what it was 7-10 days back.

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