88% Covid beds in city are vacant: BMC

MUMBAI: With the dip in the number of cases in mid-august, 13,453 (87.9%) of the 15,290 Covid beds across hospitals in the city are vacant as of Tuesday morning. The 15,290 beds comprise normal beds, oxygen beds, ICU beds, paediatric ICU beds, neonatal ICU beds, and ventilator beds for Covid patients.

A total of 6,838 (90%) of the 7,595 oxygen beds are vacant; 1,639 (73%) of the 2,243 ICU beds are vacant; 883 (68%) of the 1,289 ventilator beds are vacant. Of the 39 paediatric ICU beds, 37 are vacant; of the 28 neonatal ICU beds, 22 are vacant. Of the 127 Covid-19 beds for patients who also have cancer and/or required dialysis, 66 beds (51%) are vacant.

Mangala Gomare, executive health officer of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s public health department, said, “We have noticed bed vacancy has been steadily increasing over the past twothree weeks. The dip in cases witnessed during August is mainly responsible for this.”

However, within the past week, the number of cases reported daily has increased. Mumbai has reported over 300 cases per day since last week. This has increased the number of active cases to 3,469.

In mid-august, active cases dropped to below 3,000 on some days. On August 18, the total active cases in the city were 2,904.

Of the total 15,290 beds, 10,450 beds are in public hospitals and 4,840 in private hospitals. A total of 89% of the beds in public hospitals are vacant, and 85.1% of the beds in private hospitals are vacant.

Of the total 2,243 ICU beds, 1,179 are in public hospitals (71% are vacant); 1,064 are in private hospitals (74% are vacant).