Mumbai: Private hospitals ready to scale up Covid beds

A medical staff conducts Covid tests at Jain Health Centre, Dadar. File pic

Even as there is a sharp rise in Covid-19 cases, a majority of the private hospitals do not have a single infected patient. Private Hospital Coordinator Dr Gautam Bhansali said every private hospital currently has 15-25 beds ready, making it a total of 2,600 beds, which can be scaled up to 16,000 overnight if the need arises.

The civic chief recently held a meeting with Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation officials as well as Dr Bhansali, and directed both civic-run and private hospitals to be prepared if cases continue to rise. Recently, representatives of private hospitals too held a meeting over the issue.

Though the city reported more than 900 cases on Sunday, only 44 patients need hospitalisation. As per the BMC dashboard, there were 4,294 active cases as of Sunday and of this, only 181 patients were admitted in various health facilities, including 51 admitted to private hospitals.

Dr Bhansali said, "Though the number of patients is increasing, most of them have mild symptoms and are getting treatment via phone or video call. There is no demand for admission as of now. In private hospitals, we have 2,600 beds reserved for Covid patients. If the demand increases, we can go up to 16,000 beds overnight."

Dr V Ravishankar, COO of Lilavati Hospital, said, "We are prepared. We increased beds in the ICU today. Currently, we have 10 active patients of whom 3 are in ICU. None of the patients are on a ventilator. We have 14 beds reserved for ICU and a separate ward for mild symptomatic patients. In the future, if cases increase we will scale up too."

"Our hospital is not seeing a big spike in Covid admissions currently. As most cases are mild, we are advising patients to quarantine at home and take medication. However, the situation may become worrisome in July. Our hospital is prepared to handle any adverse situation. We can convert 100 to 150 beds for Covid patients in a day," said Dr Sujit Chatterjee, CEO, LH Hiranandani Hospital, Powai.

51
No of patients at private hospitals