Mumbai to add 40 ICU beds at Worli jumbo facility as covid-19 tally rises to 34,018

Presently, there are over 1,000 isolation beds at the BKC Modular Hospital, while the Racecourse Modular Hospital at Mahalaxmi has 300 beds and 650 beds are operational at NSCI dome in Worli

As covid-19 tally crossed the 34,000-mark in Mumbai, the city’s municipal body, on Wednesday, said it was planning to add 40 new Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds at the National Sports Complex of India (NSCI) in Worli, a make-shift jumbo hospital created for covid-19 patients.

“While the construction of 40-bed ICU at the corona care centre at NSCI in Worli is in full swing, various works at Mahalakshmi Racecourse facility are also nearing completion. The remaining works will be completed in the next wo days and both these facilities will be operational from Saturday (30 May, 2020)," Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal said in a statement on Thursday.

Presently, there are over 1,000 isolation beds at the BKC Modular Hospital, while the Racecourse Modular Hospital at Mahalaxmi has 300 beds and 650 beds are operational at NSCI dome in Worli.

“In the first phase, the work of corona care center with a capacity of 300 beds at Mahalakshmi Racecourse is 90% complete. There are 100 ICU beds for treatment," said Chahal. “In addition, work has been started to set up another 126 ICU beds and it will be completed within 10 to 15 days," he added.

About 10% of covid-19 patients require critical care in Mumbai, according to a 26 May statement by Pradip Vyas, principal secretary at the state health department. With 24,507 active cases reported till Wednesday, this would translate into a requirement of nearly 2,450 ICU beds.

With municipal and state-run hospitals accounting for nearly 644 ICU beds, the number of patients requiring critical care is clearly four times over. As of Wednesday, 96% of these ICU beds under BMC were already occupied.

As of Wednesday, the financial capital of the country added 1,044 new cases, taking the total tally of covid-19 cases in the Mumbai municipal corporation to 34,018, with 1,097 deaths and 8,408 recovered patients. The total covid-19 cases in adjoining areas, including Thane, Navi Mumbai, Kalyan-Dombivali, Ulhasnagar, Mira-Bhayandar, Vasai-Virar, Palghar, Panvel and Raigad areas, touched 193 deaths and 9,448 cases, of which 6,271 were active cases.

In Maharashtra, the covid-19 tally touched 56,998 cases, of which 37,125 were active cases, while 17,918 patients had recovered and 1,897 had died due to the novel coronavirus. The state reported a recovery rate of 31.5%.

Further, the patient doubling rate or the number of days it took for the count of cases to double in Maharashtra improved to 14.7 days from 11.5 days last week. Of the 32.42 lakh laboratory tests done in the country, about 12.4% tests were done in Maharashtra, taking the testing levels to 3,142 tests per million people against the national average of 2,363 tests per million. Presently, 5.82 lakh people are in home quarantine and 37,761 people are in institutional quarantine in Maharashtra.

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