The BMC has outsourced over 70 per cent of its beds at five of its biggest COVID-19 field hospitals which are also known as jumbo health care centres for COVID-19.
According to sources, these were set up at a total cost of over ₹100 crores, however, the civic body has struggled to find personnel for man the beds. While the treatment for the coronavirus will continue to be free, the BMC is said to pay ₹6,000 per ICU bed every day.
The five facilities are at Mulund, Dahisar, Mahalaxmi, BKC and Goregaon. These facilities have approximately 7,285 beds out of which 5,245 have been given out on a contract to three private health care organizations.
Earlier in the month, on July 7, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray inaugurated four new COVID-19 health centres via video conferencing. These centres are located in Mulund, Dahisar, Mahalaxmi Racecourse, and Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC). He further stated that these new hospitals will add 3,520 ICU beds to the total tally.
Out of these, the centre at Mulund is touted to have 1,700 beds for the patients suffering from the coronavirus which have been built by the City & Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra (CIDCO) out of which 500 beds shall be reserved for Thane Municipal Corporation.
Meanwhile, the centre at Dahisar East will consist of 900 beds and has been built with the help of the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRCL), while the one at Kandarpada in Dahisar West is a dedicated COVID-19 hospital with 108 beds which has been equipped with ICU facilities.
Furthermore, the inauguration of these centres was done in the presence of Shiv Sena MLA Aditya Thackeray, Aslam Shaikh, Kishori Pednekar, Iqbal Singh Chahal, the MD of CIDCO Lokesh Chandra and the MD of MMRCL Ranjit Singh Deol.
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