PMC war room inundated with calls for bed availability in pvt hosps

The 24-year-old grandson of a corona patient visited the Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) war room assigned to allocate the beds for Covid patients, in the PMC new building

The 24-year-old grandson of a corona patient visited the Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) war room assigned to allocate the beds for Covid patients, in the PMC new building. He wanted to admit his Covid-positive grandmother to hospital and had visited to enquire about the availability of beds in private hospitals.

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“We want to admit her in a private hospital, but we are not getting a bed. I came here to get some information first-hand regarding the availability of beds in private hospitals,” the grandson said.

As Covid patients have been increasing, the PMC helpline number which allocates beds has been flooded with calls of patient relatives to enquire about, and secure beds.

The war room which is operational 24/7, allocates beds to Covid patients in PMC/government hospitals. If a patient wants to get admitted to a private hospital, based on data from the Pune Division dashboard, the patient is guided to a private hospital based on the availability of the beds.

“This war room is active 24/7 and we work in three shifts. We are getting 500-600 calls on average, a day, for beds. We can only guide them about the availability of beds in private hospitals. Depending on the number available on the dashboard we suggest a hospital. Patients go to a private hospital and then get to know that a bed is not available there. Then they call us again,” said an official working in the war room.

“PMC has been talking to private hospitals to make more and more beds available. Two days back we held a meeting with them. Last year there were 3,600 beds available in private hospitals for Covid patients. Currently, the number is 2,000. So we still have the margin of 1,600 to increase the capacity. Meanwhile, we have started the Jumbo facility and restarting more Covid care centres for isolation. There will be no scarcity of beds,” said Muralidhar Mohol, mayor of Pune.

On Thursday evening the dashboard showed the availability of 271 total vacant beds in PMC limits at private hospitals. The numbers on the dashboard is subject to data filled by the hospitals themselves.

“Our war-room team allocates beds and guides patients based on the numbers of the ‘live’ dashboard. If we get to know that a particular hospital is not updating the dashboard, they receive notice”, said Dr Sanjeev Vavre, assistant health officer PMC.

PMC helpline to find a bed in a government or private hospital 020- 2550 2110