BMC appoints nodal officers to ensure Covid patients get beds promptly in Mumbai

These officers will work in two shifts, 3pm to 11pm and 11pm to 7am, to expedite bed allocation to patients

To ensure patients with Covid-19 are allotted hospital beds promptly, especially at night, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is appointing nodal officers in 24 ward war roomsin Mumbai, said municipal commissioner IS Chahal on Monday.

Extra beds for Covid-19 patients due to a spike in cases, at NESCO jumbo Covid-19 centre in Goregaon, Mumbai. (PTI)

These officers will work in two shifts, 3pm to 11pm and 11pm to 7am, to expedite bed allocation to patients. Covid-19 patients who call up the ward war room during the second shift will be allotted beds mostly at jumbo Covid facilities and the nodal officers, who will be in touch with the seven jumbo facilities in Mumbai, will fast-track the process.

After a bed at a jumbo facility is reserved for a patient, they will be provided with one only after their medical condition and requirement are assessed.

All patients calling up the ward war rooms between 11pm and 7am shall also be entitled to a bed, even if their test or report is pending. Such patients will be allotted beds in the “suspected” category, stabilised with oxygen (if needed), and then administered the Covid-19 test.

Mumbai will also get three more jumbo Covid hospitals within the next six weeks, adding 2,000 Covid-19 beds, including 200 intensive care unit beds, BMC announced. About 1,400 of these beds will have oxygen facilities.

With the sudden rise in the number of Covid-19 cases, BMC has decided to requisition some 4- and 5-star hotels to create Covid quarantine facilities (CCC2) for patients to be run by professionals from major private hospitals. With this, BMC plans to make a large number of beds available to patients by shifting substantially recovered patients to these CCC2 facilities.

BMC will also add 1,100 additional hospital beds, including 125 ICU beds, within the next week.

As of now, BMC has added 325 ICU beds in various Mumbai hospitals, raising the number of ICU beds to 2,466. Now, Mumbai has a total of 19,151 Covid beds across 141 hospitals in the city, of which 3,777 are vacant.

Meanwhile, all laboratories have been instructed to ensure Covid-19 test results are ready within 24 hours. The labs have been instructed to prioritise swabs of symptomatic patients while processing the Covid-19 tests collected at homes.

Moreover, labs have been asked to submit reports of patients who were tested the previous day by 6am everyday (within 24 hours of their swab collection), to ensure such patients get beds by 8am the same day. Presently, positive reports of patients who are tested in the first half of the day are submitted to BMC by midnight the same day.