28 December,2021 08:24 AM IST | Mumbai | Prajakta Kasale
The NESCO jumbo centre at Goregaon. Pic/Sameer Markande
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Faced with a sudden spike in COVID cases over the past week, the BMC is now looking to revive five jumbo facilities in the city. Up until last month, the civic corporation wasn't sure if it should continue with at least four centres considering that they had only 5-20 patients and that the cost of their operation ran into lakhs.
The five jumbo centres have been on standby since June when cases had started receding after the deadly second wave of the pandemic.
While the standing committee of the civic body had in October rejected a proposal to allot beds at the jumbo centres to private players, the BMC administration has brought it back amid the possible third wave. As per the proposal, the BMC will spend Rs 105 crore to run the five jumbo centres - Dahisar, Somaiya ground, Kanjurmarg, Malad and BKC - for at least three months. Beds will be given to the contractors in a phased manner, depending on the ground situation.
Of the 10 jumbo facilities in the city, the BMC is running evenHills, NSCI Worli, NESCO- Goregaon and Mulund for the time being.
Since it spends Rs 15-20 lakh a month on each centre, including the ones on standby, towards rent, maintenance and staff salaries, the administration had earlier decided to close a few centres in the last week of December. The revived proposal will be put up to the standing committee on Wednesday.
The BMC plans to pay Rs 5,800 per ICU bed and Rs 1,500 for each oxygenated bed at the jumbo centres. The administration has finalised five parties - Ruby Allcare Services' Lifeline Hospital Management Services, Om Sai Aarogya Care Pvt Ltd, Medtitans Management and Apex Hospital - to run beds at Dahisar, Somaiya, Kanjurmarg and Malad centres. It will also allot 108 ICU beds from the BKC centre to the contractors.
"The overall contract cost is around Rs 105 crore, mainly for staff, equipment, and does not include meals, cleanliness, security, fire services, water, sewerage management, maintenance of machinery and oxygen supply," said a BMC official.
MMRDA, MHADA and CIDCO have constructed the jumbo centres at Malad, Kanjurmarg and Somaiya ground respectively. There are approximately 2,200 beds at the Malad jumbo centre, 1,700 at Kanjurmarg, 1,100 at Sion and 800 at Dahisar centres, 1100 at Somaiya along with the 108 ICU beds at BKC which the five contractors will run depending on the caseload. The BKC centre has more than 2,400 beds.
