Mumbai takes over nursing homes, as COVID situation worsens in India

Municipal authorities in Mumbai have taken over 69 nursing homes and added 2,269 isolation beds, including 360 ICUs, in private hospitals for Covid-19 patients as coronavirus cases continue to climb in India’s financial capital.

BMC commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal on Tuesday said no bed will be directly available for admission in private hospitals. This is to ensure mildly symptomatic patients do not occupy beds.

“All allotment of hospital beds shall be through 24 Ward War Rooms only and, therefore, no one should try to procure positive Covid report directly from testing labs. Otherwise, they will find it difficult to get bed anywhere,” Chahal said.

“Let the name come to us in our line list from labs at midnight and we will go to their homes with beds early next morning, as we are doing since last June.”

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Currently there are 3,000 vacant beds across the city and its suburbs, including 450 beds in private hospital. Mumbai is recording 6,000 to 7,000 COVID cases every day. The figure is expected to touch 10,000 soon, Chahal has informed the state government.

Meanwhile, the Union Ministry of Health has said COVID-19 situation in the country is going “from bad to worse”. It has directed states witnessing a spike to ramp up testing with a focus on RT-PCR, to isolate promptly, trace contacts, and boost healthcare resources.

India recorded 56,211 new cases in the last 24 hours ending 8am Tuesday, taking the country’s total above 1.2 crore. Out of the total cases, 5.4 lakh are active while more than 1.13 crore people have recovered after testing positive.

Also watch: Maharashtra still high risk, faces uphill task in COVID mitigation

Maharashtra reported 31,643 cases on Monday and accounts for over 3.36 lakh active cases in the country.

Eight states, including Maharashtra, Karnataka and Punjab, account for 84.5 per cent of the 68,020 fresh cases recorded in the country, the ministry said.