St George Hospital awaits its return as a non-Covid facility

Mumbai: Weeks after the Maharashtra government relaxed all Covid curbs, the state-run St George Hospital in the city continues to only cater to Covid-19 patients and remains out of bounds for others

Mumbai: Weeks after the Maharashtra government relaxed all Covid curbs, the state-run St George Hospital in the city continues to only cater to Covid-19 patients and remains out of bounds for others. The 460-bed south Mumbai hospital was turned into a dedicated 320-bed Covid-19 facility in April 2020.

Hospitals - St. George's Hospital - St. George Hospital - HT Photo 30-11-2009

Dr Akash Khobragade, medical superintendent of St George’s Hospital said, “We currently have six Covid-19 patients under treatment in the hospital. Fifteen days ago, we requested that the hospital return to a non-Covid entity. We will hopefully get the notification to resume for the non-Covid-19 work soon.”

He said that the hospital, during the pre-pandemic days, had admitted 180 patients at any given point in time and the daily footfall reached to 800-900 patients in their out-door-patient departments (OPD). At the peak of the pandemic, the 342-year-old colonial-era structure, which is one of the four hospitals that are a part of the Sir JJ Group of Hospitals, was running at its full capacity.

Dr Khobragade added that as they await notification from the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER), they are utilising the time to re-arrange the hospital’s infrastructure for non-Covid work. “In April 2020, for Covid-19 management, we had made special arrangements like fewer beds in ICUs and wards. We are at present rejigging the infrastructure so we can start non-Covid work the moment we get the notification,” he said.

DMER director Dr Dilip Mhaisekar told HT the hospital will resume non-Covid work from May 1. “There are six admitted Covid-19 cases at St George Hospital. They will get discharged within 2-3 days. The hospital will resume routine work from May 1. They will keep one isolation ward and one ICU for Covid-19 cases,” he said.

A state health official who didn’t wish to be named said since St George Hospital was made into a Covid-19 facility by the state government through DMER, it will have to return to a non-covid facility via DMER directives.

At present, patients who visit St George Hospital are being referred to GT Hospital or JJ Hospital. “At JJ Hospital, we are seeing a surge in non-covid cases. However, non-Covid patient care is not getting affected,” said a senior doctor from JJ Hospital.

While St George Hospital was a dedicated Covid-19 facility, GT Hospital- the other state-run hospital in South Mumbai, is a partial one. “GT Hospital also has a section for international travellers who tested positive for Covid. Both hospitals, phase-wise, will become non-Covid. GT Hospital will be the first to become a non-Covid hospital,” said the state official.

Meanwhile, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) run hospitals have resumed their non-Covid work. Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner, BMC said, “We had passed instructions to only reserve one ward with 25-40 beds in each of our hospitals for Covid-19 patients and to start non-Covid patient management in the rest when there was a decline in both second and third wave. Even the Sevenhills hospital- our dedicated Covid-19 facility in the pandemic, has been instructed long back to start managing non-Covid patients. Since the Covid-19 patient load is not there, we shifted our focus to non-Covid illnesses.”