MUMBAI: With 85% Covid beds lying vacant in the city and admissions reducing, most hospitals have resumed routine procedures over the past few weeks. Many, in fact, are facing a greater demand for non-Covid beds.
As on Friday, 19,411 of Mumbai's 23,270 Covid beds lay vacant. Over 18,300 of them are in jumbos, private and public hospitals; the rest in Covid Care Centres meant for non-critical cases. Around 85% of isolation beds and 55% of ICU beds are unoccupied. Nearly 47% beds with ventilator support too are vacant.
Parel's KEM Hospital, which mostly admits critical patients, no longer has Covid deaths daily. Admissions, too, are every 2-3 days. Dean Dr Hemant Deshmukh said 60% routine work has resumed. "We currently have 500 non-Covid patients," he said. Ward 6, KEM's only Covid ward with 35 beds, had 16 patients on Friday. Deshmukh said they can add Covid beds if numbers surge.
In April, when the city was recording an average 9,000 cases daily, the state Covid task force had advised hospitals to stop routine surgeries to conserve oxygen for Covid patients. Dr Mohan Joshi, dean of Sion Hospital, said the situation began to improve about one and a half months ago. "Our daily admissions are down to 10 now. We have reduced Covid beds to accommodate more non-Covid patients," Dr Joshi said. KEM and Sion authorities said they were performing 300-350 major and minor surgeries daily now.
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Each unit of Sion hospital’s gynaecology department, one of its busiest wings, has a wait-list of at least a dozen patients. Head of department Dr Arun Nayak said they have begun scheduling surgeries. “People had deferred hysterectomies, put their tumour removal surgeries on hold, which we want to take up on priority,” he said.
Private hospitals, though, have not been allowed to shrink their Covid capacity. Dr V Ravishankar, COO of Lilavati Hospital, said his 240 non-Covid ward and ICU beds are full while his 140 Covid beds have huge vacancy. “Covid wards are only 35% full, while ICU has around 70% occupancy. We have several patients from Kalyan, Dombivli, Panvel undergoing treatment in ICU,” he said. He added that cardiac procedures have picked up in a big way.
At Bhatia Hospital in Tardeo, CEO Dr Rajeev Boudhankar said elective surgeries started this month. “Patients coming for surgeries have increased to 10 per day,” he said, adding surgeries are in orthopaedic, gynaecology and general procedures. Additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani said civic medical colleges would be given minimum Covid work now to free them up for non-Covid procedures that were impacted in the second wave. This April, the city had a 112% rise in deaths due to all causes compared to the average for the same month in the previous four years. Experts believe one of the reasons could be lack of access to Covid care.
