Isolated Wards in 5 Hospitals: Is Mumbai Armed to tackle COVID-19?

Isolated Wards in 5 Hospitals: Is Mumbai Armed to tackle COVID-19?

A patient being screened at Kasturba Hospital.

On 12 March, Maharashtra recorded 14 positive Coronavirus cases. In a bid to curb a spike in number of cases, the state government and civic bodies have issued multiple advisories. But, how prepared is the state in the event of an increase in the number of cases?

Kasturba Hospital in Mumbai’s Chinchpokli area is serving as the primary quarantine facility for now. There are 78 beds available in the isolation facility as of 13 March and plans to add more beds are in the pipeline. 

Kasturba Hospital in Chinchpokli

As of 12 March, 190 symptomatic patients were admitted in the isolation ward in Kasturba Hospital.

Kasturba Hospital in Chinchpokli

Isolation wards have also been set up in four other Municipal hospital across the city. 20 beds have been set up in the isolation wards of HBT Hospital in Jogeshwari and Rajawadi Hospital in Ghatkopar. Meanwhile, 10 beds have set up at the two Bhabha Hospitals in Bandra and Kurla.

The BMC could also consider roping in private hospitals to ensure adequate facilities are at hand if required. But these hospitals must meet certain requirements, says Director of Infectious Diseases at Jaslok Hospital, Dr Om Shrivastava.

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Dr Om Shrivastava, Director of Infectious Diseases at Jaslok Hospital “Only those hospitals that have got a proper state of the art isolation facility (can host isolation wards). This requires a particular type of structure, which is, a different AHU (Air Handling Unit), the presence of a HEPA filter, presence of air conditioning factor changes. All of these things are required. There is a criteria for having an isolation facility and if they meet that, yes.”

Dr Shrivastava added that these wards that are described as a Bio Safety Level-3 (BSL-3), have very specific requirements. Thus, hospitals needed to follow the required protocol.

Maharashtra has only three testing centres for Coronavirus as of now, with just one in Mumbai at Kasturba Hospital, another at Indira Gandhi Government Medical College in Nagpur and the Pune based NIV.

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