As the country reaches staggering numbers of deaths and cases related to COVID-19, Maharashtra government has effectively revised its policies for allocation of hospital beds.
As per livemint, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to discharge asymptomatic patients at the earliest to vacate beds for the patients with more serious symptoms. The revised policy shelled out by BMC states that no asymptomatic Covid-19 positive patient without any comorbidities will be allotted a COVID bed in any public or private hospital.
It described “needy” patients as the one with “mild or serious symptoms or a Covid-19 patient with comorbidities”.
The Mumbai civic body has also decided to place an order for procuring 1.5 lakh injections of antiviral drug Remdesivir and other medical equipment to avoid any potential shortage of medicines at the city hospitals.
Backed by BMC commissioner IS Chahal, assistant commissioners have been empowered to take decisions including activation of war rooms at the ward level for organised distribution of available beds, ICU beds, ventilators among others to avoid any chaos experienced during the first wave of coronavirus when several patients ran from pillar to post to get a bed.
The order stated that 80% of the total beds and 100% of ICU beds in private hospitals shall be kept reserved only for the allotment through the ward war rooms for Covid-19 patients. In lieu of the increasing complaints by the masses regarding the unavailability of beds, the BMC has announced official helpline numbers which can be used to report COVID-19 numbers and report bed requirements according to Mumbailive.
Feature image courtesy NDTV
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