MbPT to start ‘Covidcare ashram’ for asymptomatic patients

The city’s port authority has readied a facility, Covidcare ashram, for non-critical, asymptomatic patients with no co-morbidities in Wadala (East). The facility

The city’s port authority has readied a facility, Covidcare ashram, for non-critical, asymptomatic patients with no co-morbidities in Wadala (East). The facility will be exclusively for the port employees and pensioners.

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Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) chairman Sanjay Bhatia, on Monday, said that apart from medical facilities, the patients will be encouraged to do yoga, meditation among other techniques to recover.

“We have identified a facility that can house 60 people from the port area itself. We will conduct sessions online for the patients,” said Bhatia, a meditation practitioner himself. He has been conducting healing sessions for employees and pensioners during the lockdown period.

In a webinar on Monday, Bhatia also said that the port trust’s hospital will also add 80 more beds for Covid-19 patients. “We had 50 beds first, which was increased to 75 later. Till date, we have had 241 patients and recorded 27 deaths,” Bhatia said. The port trust also has 35,000 pensioners and 6,000 employees on its pay-roll.

“We have observed that a lot of patients are coming in late for treatment. So we have now appointed a nodal officer in each department who are calling the pensioners to check on their health if they are showing any symptoms,” he said.

With a decrease in port activities, the authority is working on a masterplan that looks at an urban overhaul of the port area that stretches from Wadala to Colaba. However, with the pandemic ensued lockdown, MbPT is estimating a 3-4 month delay in all its projects, including the development of the waterfront.