Rise in demand for ICU beds in Navi Mum

NAVI MUMBAI: For more than a week, Navi Mumbai has been facing shortage of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds with an increase in demand for these beds.

The patients are finding it increasingly difficult to get an ICU bed. Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) chief, Abhijit Bangar, said that people home isolate instead of going to hospitals against the medical advice and when their health worsens, require directly an ICU bed, increasing the demand of them.

Bangar said, “There is a protocol for home isolation. Senior citizens, patients with comorbidities or anyone with a history that the medical officer feels could lead to complications are not allowed to be home isolated. But, many of them go against the medical advice of the corporation’s medical office, but panic when their health worsens.”

He added that it is important that the patients give doctors a chance to treat them. “After staying home isolated, when the oxygen level is found to be going low, the patient starts hunting for an ICU bed. If the patient would have been admitted to the hospital in the beginning itself, such a situation of panic could be avoided,” Bangar said.

Another officer added, “Most of the senior citizens are adamant about being home quarantined even when we ask them to get admitted. They feel that their condition will worsen if they go

to hospitals. But the fact is if their condition worsens at home, then getting a control over it and giving treatment at a later time becomes difficult.”

To solve the issue of ICU bed shortage, NMMC has reached an agreement with MGM, Kamothe Hospital for 100 beds and 75 more ICU beds are in the pipeline at Cidco Exhibition centre.

BACHCHAN KUMAR/ HT Test for Covid in progress at APMC Market.