612 ICU beds in Covid facilities to be handed over to private groups

To decongest and take the load off civic hospitals, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will soon outsource the functioning of 612 intensive care unit (ICU)

To decongest and take the load off civic hospitals, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will soon outsource the functioning of 612 intensive care unit (ICU) beds at jumbo Covid facilities to private firms or groups of private doctors, to manage.

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The civic body will invite firms to run the ICU facilities, by providing full support staff such as ward staff, nurses, supervisors, senior and resident doctors, and specialists. Currently, there is 86% occupancy of ICU beds in the city.

There are eight jumbo facilities temporarily set up across Mumbai to handle Covid-19 cases. These centres have 612 ICU beds adding to Mumbai’s total capacity of 1,737.

Jumbo facilities were earlier conceptualised and built by BMC as Covid care centres (CCC-1 and CCC-2) to quarantine high-risk contacts and asymptomatic patients. They were then converted into dedicated Covid health centres (DCHC) with oxygen beds, and dedicated Covid hospitals (DCH) with ICU beds.

The civic body said that giving control to private firms will help reduce the pressure on hospital staff and decongest ICUs at Sion, Nair, and KEM hospitals.

Till July 13, of its total capacity of 1, 737 ICU beds, 1, 510 were occupied and 227 were vacant.

Municipal commissioner Iqbal Chahal said, “The pressure on our medical staff has decreased from what it was initially. We are expecting that in another 15 days, we will bring down the vacancy of ICU beds in Sion, KEM, and Nair hospitals by 25%. I have already issued an order that 612 ICU beds in our jumbo facilities will be outsourced to a group of private doctors.”

Chahal said that decongesting civic hospitals will help avoid a shortage of medical staff. “If we are able to bring down the bed occupancy in civic-run hospitals to 50%, then there will be no shortage of medical staff in our hospitals,” he added.

As of July 13, the total hospital-bed capacity for Covid patients in the city was 22,819, of which 10,200 beds are vacant. BMC has additional 23,945 beds in CCC-2 facilities and 50,077 beds in CCC-1 facilities.