BMC: May take call on shutting few Covid facilities post December

The civic body has said that it will wait till December to take a final call on shutting a few Covid-19 isolation facilities and treatment centres

Although the rate of Covid-19 bed occupancy has dropped significantly in Mumbai, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is treading cautiously when it comes to shutting down the facilities erected for the Covid-19 patients. The civic body has said that it will wait till the end of the year to take a final call on shutting a few Covid-19 isolation facilities and treatment centres.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has said that it will wait till the December to take a final call on shutting a few Covid-19 isolation facilities and treatment centres in Mumbai.

According to the BMC dashboard, Mumbai has a capacity to accommodate 17,434 Covid-19 patients in all the hospital beds, out of which 16,273 (93%) of them are vacant and 1,161 are occupied. After the pandemic broke out, the BMC had set up a three tier bed system for the patients, which included Covid Care Centre -1 (CCC-1) located in hotels, halls and lodges, CCC-2 facilities in government centres with available doctors and nurses round-the-clock and Dedicated Covid Health Centres (DCHC).

Additional municipal commissioner and in-charge of public health Suresh Kakani told HT, “We have instructed hospitals that having only one ward would do for now as the cases have started to go down. Earlier, there used to be several Covid-19 wards in BMC and government hospitals and now these resources will be transferred to the non-Covid wards.”

He also mentioned that in the Jumbo Centres the number of active beds have also been reduced. Kakani said that each jumbo centre used to have as many as ten wards with 200-250 bed capacity in each of them for Covid patients. Now, there are 250-400 active Covid-19 beds in each of these jumbo centres depending on the demand and situation of the nearby municipal wards.

“While we have reduced the bed capacity we are not completely dismantling these facilities right now. The month of December is going to be crucial with Christmas and new year to take place. We will be studying the situation and may take a call at the end of December or early January,” he said.

A senior BMC official requesting anonymity said that at the ward level many of the CCC facilities have been shut down temporarily and the available resources are being reserved as a buffer in case there is any need in the future if the fresh Covid-19 wave hits.

Earlier this year, the BMC standing committee had passed a resolution to appoint private contractors for maintenance of these beds. Sunita Rajesh Mehta - BJP corporator and a member of BMC Health Committee said that it’s too early to dismantle the available beds of the Covid Care Facilities.

“There are still cases coming and many people are yet to complete their vaccination. The BMC has spent a lot of money in tackling the pandemic so far and if things go bad again then they will have to reconstruct these facilities again which will cost more,” Mehta said.