Amid a surge of covid19 cases and high demands for beds in private hospitals, BMC has suddenly changed the base of its online bed availibility tracker removing it from the public domain and giving access to limited officials. According to civic officials, the link was circulated among people via various channels "accidentally" leading to misuse of the bed tracker.
The online bed availability tracker was suspended two days back, when inquired with BMC chief Iqbal Singh Chahal if the civic body discontinued the link or it has crashed, he said "It exists but not in public domain."
Explaining the issue further Additional Municipal Commissioner (Health) Suresh Kakani said : "That online bed availibility tracker is to keep for ward war rooms and officials to track bed availibility for allotment of beds and not to be put in public domain for public use. However the link got ciculated via various channels and later we founf out that it was being misused by people."
Speaking to the Free Press Journal Kakani said, " The bed tracker exists, however we have changed the base and have allowed limited access. People looking for beds can contact ward war rooms and bed will be alloted to them if they really need it. Those who do not need beds will not be allowed to block the beds."
The BMC officials have time and again appealed to the residents to not wait for hospitalization as per their choice of hospitals or book the hospital beds on their own. According to the protocol for allotment of beds, the BMC has urged people to contact the ward war room and have also published contact numbers of the ward war rooms on various social networking and microblogging sites apart from its official website for the covid bed requirements. It also asked people not to collect test reports directly from the lab saying BMC will provide their report and bed details.
Besides the Mumbai civic body, last week appointed 70 auditors for all 35 major private hospitals to ensure your patients are not overcharged and get beds and hospitals follow the discharge policy stipulated by the civic body.
