Over the past couple of months, the state and BMC have set up healthcare facilities to accommodate the growing number of COVID-19 patients in the city which require medical equipment in bulk. But, this has been an uphill task for the civic body as many kinds of medical equipment are imported from foreign countries and adjustments are constantly being made to the tendering process to deal with the challenges.

Senior civic officials said that the demand for medical equipment including patient warmers, ventilators and patient monitors is unpredictable and comes up suddenly based on the number of cases and acquiring the equipment takes at least 10-15 days.