Amid rising coronavirus cases, all major private hospitals which include Bombay, Saifee, Lilavati, Nanavati, Hiranandani and other hospitals are running short of Covid beds following which patients have to be on a waiting list to get admitted. However, the civic body claims there are 24 per cent of beds vacant at all the hospitals. Officials said due to the floating population of the patient’s beds are not vacant and they are getting moderately symptomatic patients who are being discharged in seven days.
Senior civic official said most of the patients are from higher society following which they want beds at private hospitals which led to a shortage and needy patient have to be on a waiting list. “The main reason for beds not being vacant as most of the patients moderately symptomatic following which they need to be hospitalised due to which there is a floating population of patients. However the patients are discharged in four-five days after their reports are negative but due to a surge in cases beds are full and we have to keep the patient on standby,” he said.
Meanwhile, the civic body has asked private hospitals to increase the number of Covid beds to 5,000 from the present 3,111. The city has almost 13,000 beds, with plans to increase it to 21,000 in the coming weeks.
One of the patient kin said that he wanted to admit his mother to the covid hospital after she tested corona positive but unfortunately he was asked to wait until beds are vacant. “I enquired at Saifee hospital and I was told there is a waiting list of more than 50,” he said.
Dr Gautam Bhanshali from Bombay Hospital, who is a state task force member, said: they have started getting calls from people who say they are making enquiries for relatives just in case there is a need. Moreover, they had reduced the Covid beds when cases had gone down but now again they have increased it to 80 beds. “When pandemic started we had more than 150 Covid beds. But later we reduced the beds as it was lying vacant as cases had dropped. When cases began to go down, we reduced the beds to just 10 to 15 and those too were lying vacant. But now we have 39 beds, including 11 ICU beds and they are all occupied. We are in the process of adding 40 more beds, including 10 in the ICUs," he said.
