Mumbai runs out of operational ICUs, oxygen-supported beds for COVID-19 patients

Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, May 29

Mumbai has run out of operational intensive care units (ICUs) and oxygen-supported beds for patients suffering from the COVID-19 as there are not enough healthcare workers to man additional facilities, according to civic officials.

“We are gradually adding beds at various facilities as we need adequate healthcare workers, including doctors and nurses, to manage them,” Additional Municipal Commissioner Suresh Kakani said.

The official admitted that plans to augment the number of beds available at several places had slowed down due to the shortage of trained personnel.

On Friday, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said there were just 645 ICU beds and 4,292 beds with oxygen support for COVID-19 patients in Mumbai.

More than 35,000 people have already tested positive for the virus in the country’s financial capital with the daily tally nearly 1,500 cases as on Thursday, according to the data available with the civic body.

Mumbai’s Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal, had earlier this week, told reporters that the 75,000 hospital beds which would be increased to 1 lakh by June 15.

However, these facilities, set up at a number of places — the NSCI grounds at Worli, MMRDA grounds at the Bandra-Kurla Complex, Bombay Exhibition Centre in suburban Goregaon and an office building offered by actor Shah Rukh Khan — are only partially operational or not operational at all due to shortage of personnel.

“Many of these facilities are simply functioning as quarantine centres for mildly symptomatic patients,” a civic official pointed out.

According to doctors from private hospitals, who have volunteered to be part of the team to fight the war on the virus, said the suspension of Mumbai’s train services had affected the movement of healthcare personnel.

“Many junior doctors, nurses, technicians, ward boys and other staff live in the distant suburbs and commute by train. It is not possible for them to come to work without public transport,” a doctor from a private hospital said.

Meanwhile, even seriously ill patients are being turned away from hospitals as a result of which several of them have died while rushing from one hospital to another.

The BMC has now put out advertisements offering double the salaries for healthcare personnel, in addition to food and accommodation apart from a 15-day quarantine for every 15-days worked in a COVID-19 ward.