To reduce fatality rate, tells private hospitals to refer critical patients to civic-run Covid Care Centres or state-run hospitals BMC wants critical patients in CCCs

With an aim to bring down the Covid-19 fatality rate in Mumbai, the BMC has now suggested private hospitals that should refer all critical coronavirus patients to the civic-run Covid Care Centres (CCCs) or to state-run hospitals. The initiative is part of the ‘Mission Save Lives’ which will help bring the CFR below 3 per cent.

Currently, there are 1,117 critical patients across Mumbai. So far 7,532 deaths have been reported. The CFR of Mumbai is 5.3 per cent, which is higher than Maharashtra’s 3.2 per cent.

“According to the numbers collated by the committee, 31 per cent of Mumbai’s over 7,380 deaths so far took place within 24 hours of admission into hospitals and 59 per cent in the first four

days” said health officials.

Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner, health, BMC, said, they had noticed that the death related to Covid-19 at private hos

pitals has increased to 40 per cent in August compared to 18-20 per cent in June. The BMC conducted a weekly meeting with 15 private hospitals which registered the highest Covid-19 mortality. “We have asked the private hospital authorities to take suggestions from senior doctors and experts of government hospitals or members from the Maharashtra task force for Covid19 management. This will help them plan the treatment strategy. We have suggested that they should refer the critical patients to the state-run hospitals or CCCs who need intensive treatment,” he said.

Dr Avinash Supe, heading the Death Audit Committee is now also taking into account the grade of patients coming to a particular hospital. “The mortality in a hospital may be high, but that may also be because too many patients in very serious condition were brought to the hospital,” he said.

G (south) ward covering Worli and Prabhadevi, F (south) covering Parel, and F (north) covering Sion, Matunga, Wadala and Dadar-east all registered death rates ranging between 6 and 6.3 per cent.

Kakani further said the mortality rate in key hospitals is now in single digit. “The treatment protocol has been amended. We are also focussing on judicious use of Tocilizumab and Remdesivir. The involvement of senior doctors is also a crucial factor,” he said. Kakani said he has assistant commissioners and medical officers to note the date of swab collection, date of test report and the amount of time the patient spent in home isolation before being admitted to a hospital. “We must see if patients are being referred to hospitals late. We will also analyse why some wards are registering high death rates,” he said.