“We are going to provide oxygen facilities outside hospitals, at Covid care centres. That will help reduce the burden on hospitals. I don’t want to glorify this, but it is a first of a kind experiment in the country”

UDDHAV THACKERAY between two beds is reduced, the doctors and health workers are wearing PPE kits. No one is allowed there without a PPE kit. The BMC is trying to optimise the space by giving equal importance to safety safeguards and to bed augmentation.” While Dr Mohan Joshi, dean of Nair Hospital, says a space of eight feet is ideal, he realises hospitals have to be pragmatic to accommodate the growing number of patients. “Idealism cannot work when there is such an influx of patients. No government hospital can turn away a patient. We have to be accommodating,” he says.

The BMC officials are facing a problem in updating the availability of beds in private hospitals. The protocol states that if a patient is discharged from DCH, the hospital has to inform BMC’s disaster cell. Since this will be real-time data on vacant and occupied beds, the BMC can direct patients to a hospital accordingly. However, Dr Daksha Shah, BMC’s executive health officer, says, “The hospitals are not keeping the BMC updated about discharge of patients.”

The government believes the decision by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to discharge asymptomatic patients in 10 days will improve availability of beds. A state-level task force led by Dr Sanjay Oak, former dean of KEM Hospital, has recommended that 70 per cent beds in around 30,000 private hospitals, including nursing homes, should be acquired for DCHCs and DCHs. Tope mooted an idea to reserve 30 per cent beds in private hospitals for five kinds of treatments—deliveries, brain stroke, heart disease, cancer and accidents—and the rest for Covid. “We can pay private hospitals to recover their losses,” he says. Private hospitals are negotiating with state authorities over the rate of treatment. The government has assured them it will bear the cost of treatment of Covid patients, hoping it encourages them to treat more patients.

Looking at the trend of growing number of cases, the state is expecting a surge in June and July. If the virus races ahead of the health preparations, the nightmare will only get worse for the Maximum City. ■