Jumbo NSCI Dome facility set to turn into COVID-19 hospital

40-bed ICU to start this week; contactless screening, consultation areas among other facilities

From a diamond merchant gasping for breath, cancer patients from Tata Memorial Hospital with compromised immunity, and policemen with co-morbidities to convicts from Arthur Road jail, the city’s first jumbo isolation facility at National Sports Club of India’s Dome in Worli has admitted nearly 1,000 COVID-19 patients since it opened on March 21.

This week, the isolation facility is all set to start a 40-bed intensive care unit that will transition it into a full-fledged makeshift COVID-19 hospital. “Once the ICU becomes functional, this will be a super success model for anyone to replicate,” said Dr. Muffazal Lakdawala, the popular weight loss surgeon who has been at the helm of the facility. “This is the blueprint for all the jumbo facilities that are being opened up now.”

Contactless clinics

Set up inside the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Indoor Stadium in the NSCI Complex, the air-conditioned facility boasts of contactless screening and consultation areas, four large screens to keep the patients entertained, and access to an open-air passage where patients are brought out for their daily yoga sessions.

The stadium has been divided into four parts: the A, B, C and D wards. There is one nursing station for two wards where patients are constantly queuing up with queries. For their daily consultations, the patients queue up at the contactless clinic, where young medical interns sitting on the other side of the glass interact with them on a mobile phone. Nursing students, wearing PPE suits, take rounds of the wards, checking on patients who are too unwell to move from their beds or are on oxygen support.

There are eight side rooms on the periphery of the four wards for VIP patients. Among them is a mother with a 15-day-old baby. One of the side rooms currently has four convicts from Arthur Road jail. While other side rooms are open, the one with the convicts remains locked. “Two nurses and a ward boy have to come together to open the room and take them for consultations. We don’t do it alone as a precaution,” said Dipti Agiwale, a 22-year-old nursing student who has volunteered to work at the facility. She said some patients are calm, while others get extremely restless. There have been incidents of patients starting to run around and shouting when they get anxious. “We talk to them and calm them down,” she said.

Entertainment options

Throughout the day, patients come up with demands to play the channels of their choice on the screen. While some demand the Ramayana, others want to watch a new channel. Doctors try to play the requests as well as a good mix of feel-good movies, soaps and specially recorded songs and videos. “Recently, when singer Roop Kumar Rathod sang (the film song), ‘Sandese aate hai’ for them, many patients were moved to tears,” said Dr. Lakdawala.

As on Monday, the facility had 339 patients including 44 patients who were 60 years old, six pregnant women and 61 cancer patients. At least 130 patients had some kind of co-morbid conditions. “We have learnt to save lives of patients before they get worse. Oxygen therapy and blood thinners are crucial and we immediately start the interventions. We are also relying a lot on X-rays, which helps us predict which patient’s condition may turn severe,” said gynaecologist Dr. Neeta Warty, another senior doctor who has been working at the facility.

Dr. Warty consults the pregnant women, many of whom could not find a bed in hospitals, before being admitted to the NSCI facility.

Healthcare workers’ safety is given a lot of importance, with Dr. Lakdawala ensuring that top-quality personal protective equipment (PPE) kits are procured. There is a dedicated space for donning (putting on) and doffing (removing) the PPEs when health workers walk out after eight-hour shifts.

A disinfectant is sprayed on them before they start doffing and a supervisor assists them as they may be too tired to remember all the steps. “With good-quality PPE kits and a proper infection control protocol, there is no chance of us getting the infection,” said nursing supervisor Pallavi Jadhav.