THE BYL Nair Hospital at Mumbai Central is transitioning into a COVID- only hospital. At the moment, there are only five serious patients infected from COVID-19 that are admitted in the hospital. The newly-named dean of Nair Hospital, Dr Manoj Joshi said that earlier they had 50 COVID-19 patients and with the five new patients, their total has advanced to a total of 55 corona virus patients in the hospital.
The 225 non-COVID patients who are currently admitted at Nair Hospital will be shifted to other hospitals.
According to the officials, Dr Ramesh Bharmal, who was the dean of Nair Hospital till last week, will continue to serve as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) director of medical education.
According to reports, Dr Bharmal and all senior doctors were opposed to Nair Hospital’s COVID transition. They argued that it would affect the medical curriculum and schedules at the medical college.
The decision of the transition was taken at a meeting held by the newly setup task-force, led by the former dean, Dr Sanjay Oak. Earlier, KEM Hospital was the original choice but the proposal was dropped as most at the meeting felt the bigger hospital should be kept for non-COVID patients.
With the transition in place, Dr Joshi said that the hospital will upscale to 300 beds by month-end. The plan is to transform at least 700 of the 1,600-bedded hospital into beds for severely ill corona virus patients.
Dr Joshi further added that Nair Hospital has enough manpower and if needed, more could be pooled from other hospitals.
Various hospitals in Mumbai are running out of beds as the number of positive patients keeps on rising every day. Mumbai has over 2,500 patients presently undergoing treatment for COVID-19 at hospitals and quarantine center.
On April 20, the number of corona virus cases in Mumbai reached 3,032 whereas the tally of cases in Maharashtra reached 4,666 after 466 new COVID-19 cases were reported in the state.