E-Paper
Covid-19 triggers health infra boost in PMC
The ventilator count at civic body-run hospitals has touched 71 from zero.
PUNE The Covid-19 pandemic has improved the Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC’s) health infrastructure with increase in number of ventilators from zero to 71 in civic body-run hospitals, including maternity hospitals and state’s only infection control hospital, Naidu hospital.
Naidu hospital which is still the state’s only permanent infection control hospital had no ventilator until March 2020, but now has ten ventilators. It was also the first hospital in Maharashtra to isolate and treat Covid-19 patients. Currently, there are 71 ventilators at hospitals which the PMC controls which include the ventilators that the civic body received under the PM Cares funds and also the ones at the jumbo facility at College of Engineering Pune, ground.
The 71 include the 10 at Naidu hospital, 10 at Dalvi Hospital, 15 at dedicated Covid-19 hospital at Baner, 30 at the COEP jumbo facility and six which the civic body got under PM Cares funds and are currently at Sassoon General hospital, but will be returned as and when required by the civic body.
Dr Anjali Sabne, health officer incharge, civic hospitals, said, “It is true that we got these ventilators in a very short period. We also got hundreds of doctors on board even if they are on a contractual basis and also filled in all the crucial posts during the pandemic.”
Dr Abhiijit More, health activist and state co-convenor for the NGO Jan Arogya Abhiyan, said, “The civic body was not at all prepared for this pandemic in terms of health infrastructure and now due to the pandemic they were rather forced to do it which is not a good thing. However, PMC’s Kamala Nehru still does not have an ICU. All this despite the fact that Pune had witnessed a serious swine flu pandemic in 2009 and the civic body failed to learn any lessons from it.”
Chetan Tupe, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLA, said, “When we were in power in PMC, we had purchased the best of ventilators which were never put to use by the administration. They were left packed at Kamala Nehru hospital for years and later donated to Sassoon hospital by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). It is not true that we did not get any machinery, but the problem was that the civic body did not get any expert doctors to operate the ventilators, which is why they could not be used and this problem persists.”
Health infra boost in PMC
(Figures as of November 2020)
10 at Dalvi hospital
10 at Naidu hospital
30 at COEP jumbo hospital
15 at Baner DCH
6 at Sassoon General Hospital (PMC got under PM Cares funds)
71 total ventilators
