The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will relieve asymptomatic Covid-19 patients at the earliest in order to allot beds to more serious cases of coronavirus. This comes as the cases are soaring exponentially in Mumbai, as per media reports.
BMC has also decided to order 1.5 lakh injections of antiviral drug Remdesivir and other medical equipment so that the city does not run short of medical interventions amidst surging cases.
BMC said that no asymptomatic Covid-19 positive patient without any comorbidities will be allotted a Covid bed in any public or private hospital.
BMC described the needy patient as the one with "mild or serious symptoms or a Covid-19 patient with comorbidities."
The civic body tweeted: “You can certainly move out in an emergency. Please contact the respective war room number of your ward (areas you live in) for further guidance.”
BMC commissioner IS Chahal has also empowered assistant commissioners to take decisions at the ward level. He asked the authorities to launch war rooms at the ward level for better management of available beds, ICU beds, ventilators among others, Livemint reported.
According to the order, 80 per cent of the total beds and 100 per cent of ICU beds in private hospitals shall be kept reserved only for the allotment through the ward war rooms for Covid-19 patients.
"No direct admissions on these reserved beds to be taken by hospitals," the order further added.
"No bed will be allotted directly to anyone by hospitals. All allotment of hospital beds shall be through 24 Ward War Rooms only and therefore no one should try to procure positive covid report directly from testing labs," the BMC Commissioner said.
Meanwhile, Mumbai recorded the highest single-day spike in coronavirus infections on Sunday. It added 6,923 new cases, taking the total toll to 3,98,674.