With urgent need to increase bed strength by at least 30 per cent, BMC assures citizens it will take the count to 21,000 by commandeering facilities in various hospitals
A health care worker takes a swab sample of a woman for a COVID-19 test at Topiwala Municipal Maternity Home, Goregaon, on Thursday. Pic/Satej Shinde
Availability of beds for COVID-19 patients is slowly becoming a problem with the daily cases rapidly increasing in the city. With Mumbai recording more than 5,000 cases for two consecutive days, the bed occupancy shot up to 63 per cent from 55 per cent in just 24 hours. Even the number of specialised beds (ICU-ventilator and NICU) is low. However, the municipal commissioner has assured that the number of beds will be increased from the current 13,773 to 21,000 within the next two weeks.
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Though less than 15 per cent of the cases are symptomatic, the daily number is so high that even 15 per cent of it will require a huge number of beds. File pic
Sources said that though less than 15 per cent of the cases are symptomatic, the daily number is so high that even 15 per cent of it will require a huge number of beds. The BMC has already asked private hospitals to increase the number of beds to what it was in July last year.
While there is a need to increase the bed strength by 35 per cent, Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal has assured that the civic body would operationalise beds in different hospitals of the city. “Assuming that the number of daily cases will increase to 10,000 in due course of time and approximately 15 per cent of them will be symptomatic, the total number of beds that will be needed to handle the situation for about six to eight weeks is 21,000,” said Chahal.
He further added that as of now not more than 15 per cent of the patients need hospitalisation and the BMC would be in a comfortable position to provide the required health care and would also increase testing from 45,000 to 60,000 per day. However, in terms of specialised beds, two are available out of seven PICU with ventilator, out of 23 NICU-ventilator beds, 14 are already occupied and 973 ICU-ventilator beds are occupied while 269 are available.
Low death rate
Even though the daily cases are increasing fast, the number of deaths continues to be low. Between February 10 and March 24 there were 200 deaths, which is an average of 4.6 deaths per day and a mortality rate of 0.3 per cent.
Availability of beds
>> Total number of beds in DCH and DCHC: 13,773
>> Available beds: 5,140
BMC predicts: If there are 10,000 cases per day and 15 per cent of it symptomatic, then there will be 1,500 patients with 14-days’ cycle of bed occupancy. For this, a total of 21,000 beds will be needed.
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