Allot beds through ‘war rooms’ only: BMC to private hospitals

After decentralising hospital bed allocation in a systematic manner through ward level war rooms, to bring down the turnaround time, BMC chief Iqbal Singh Chahal on Wednesday met CEO's and representatives of major private hospitals to discuss the issue further.

Taking a firm stand, the civic chief has asked civic medical teams of each administrative wards to inspect CoVid wards/ beds in hospitals across Mumbai and immediately issue discharge orders for patients who are found asymptomatic or have tested negative.

"I have clearly instructed our medical teams, and repeatedly told this to hospital managements that hospital beds should be and will be allotted only tho patients who test positive, have symptoms and are critical. Those who are symptomatic, are close contacts of positive patients will be sent to Covid care centres," said Iqbal Singh Chahal.

According to the BMC, only the ward level war rooms will allot beds in hospitals and ventilators to patients in intensive care units (ICUs), as well as normal beds in Covid care centres and beds in quarantine facilities for high-risk contacts. It is for the hospital managements to communicate to the war rooms if they admit any critical patients.

According to BMC, officials found out that receptionists in a few of these private hospitals have turned down many patients stating there are no beds available. Chahal has asked the hospital authorities to inform these receptionists and tell operators about the process of bed allocations and how to deal with the situation. " They will direct the cases to BMC ward rooms, which will register the case and allot bed. If the patient is critical hospitals will have to admit the patients and report to the ward level war rooms," Chahal said.

BMC had earlier developed a centralised dashboard that could be accessed by civic officials who could guide citizens calling on disaster management helpline (1916). The dashboard used to be updated every 30 minutes. However, citizens say finding beds continues to be difficult.

As per the new plan, every ward level war room has live data from the centralised dashboard. Based on this, the ward office/war rooms allocate beds to citizens.