To tackle new Covid wave, BMC tells ward officers to monitor beds in private hospital

The Mumbai municipal corporation has ordered all its ward officers to take over the beds in private hospitals and nursing homes as the city gears up to tackle a new surge of Covid-19 infections. Asymptomatic Covid-19 patients without any comorbidity will not be allocated hospital beds. The corporation has instructed hospitals to discharge at the earliest all such patients who have been admitted.

On Monday, the corporation issued 18 directives to its ward officers and private hospitals as part of its strategy to better utilise the hospital beds in the city, as it looks to avoid a situation similar to last year’s when many patients who had urgent need of hospitalisation could not get admitted due to poor allocation of beds.

Eighty per cent of total hospital beds and all ICU beds will be reserved for Covid treatment in each ward, and no admissions by private hospitals will be allowed to these without the permission of the corporation.

Hospitals have been instructed to activate their beds to the maximum capacity. These hospitals will be run under the control of the assistant commissioners of each city ward. The ward officers will have the liberty to deploy police forces to facilitate bed allocation.

The medical professionals in the 'war room' of each ward will be responsible for triaging the patients and beds. The ICU and hospital beds in a ward will be allocated first to patients from that ward. If there are more patients, they will be sent to facilities that are affiliated to the ESIS, jumbo centres, and other private hospitals. Hospital bed allocation will be done after it gets approved by the corporation’s war room. As of March 25, Mumbai had 931 ICU beds and 9,397 general beds.