As the coronagraph of the twin-city continues to reach alarming levels, the health department of the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) is once again scrambling to increase beds in private and public healthcare facilities.
Most of the private hospitals are running out of bed which is a clear indication of how the situation is spiraling out of control. The paucity of intensive care units (ICU) and ventilator beds is another point of concern for the MBMC. Civic chief- Dilip Dhole had recently claimed that 67 percent of Covid-19 beds were vacant; however, the surge in the fresh detections coupled by comparatively lower recoveries has led to an alarming upward trend in the number of active cases. Consequently, private hospitals are running out of beds at an unusually high speed. Also, while beds are available in government facilities, many prefer beds in private hospitals.
Apart from four public health care facilities including two dedicated Covid health centres (DCHC) and two Covid care centres (CCC) in operation, 22 private hospitals have been roped in to treat Covid patients.
“We organized a meeting with the management of private hospitals on Wednesday. Apart from requesting the existing healthcare providers to increase their bed capacity, new hospitals have already been roped in to ensure that beds do not fall short. Moreover, we are also enhancing our capacity by re-starting our CCC’s,” said Dhole.
With an average of 350 to 400 people testing positive on a daily basis per day for the past more than a week, admissions to hospitals have shot up and the bed capacity will soon fall short, officials said.
Meanwhile, 522 more people tested positive on Wednesday. With the latest additions, the number of cumulative positive cases and active cases has jumped to 33,376 and 3500 respectively. On the other hand, only 215 patients recovered from their illness on Wednesday, taking the total number of recoveries to 29,031. With three more casualties, the total death count has mounted to 845.
