isolation facility

MRI and CT scan machines

Covid-19 hospital

Nair Hospital

Covid-19 patients

Photo by Satish Malavade

The hospital will have a 500-bed ICU, an 800-bed& specialists from every stream of medicine available in-house.1,300 beds, a 500-bed ICU, its own isolation ward, state-of-the artand, of course, super-specialists from every stream of medicine under one roof – Mumbai is finally getting an exclusiveit deserves.By Monday,– one of the biggest BMC-run hospitals – will start transferring all its non-coronavirus patients to its other facilities, making way for the city’s largest Covid-19 facility, twice the size of Kasturba and SevenHills put together.With this, the BMC would have taken care of the biggest handicap in its fight against the virus – the lack of ICU beds and top-notch super-specialists required to treatin need of critical care. Experts believe Mumbai’s death rate – highest in the country – is mainly down to this one lacuna.The emptying out of Nair Hospital of all non-Covid-19 patients also indicates that the city is digging in its heels for a protracted struggle against Covid-19 that could, as this paper reported in its Saturday’s edition, last months and not weeks as many of us had hoped. The BMC has already floated a recruitment advertisement for hiring superspecialist doctors, nurses and ward boys on three-month contracts at SevenHills.Additional Municipal Commissioner Suresh Kakani said the transformation of Nair will take place in stages. “In first phase, we will vacate the first building of all non-Covid patients and create a 100-bed facility with a 50-bed ICU. Eventually, Nair will have a 500-bed ICU and an 800-bed isolation ward,” he said, adding that fifty new ventilators have already arrived and a supplementary order for 80 more has been placed.The hospital will also have a 50-bed maternity ward for Covid-19 positive expectant mothers.Recently, the government constituted a nine-member task force to evolve a patient management protocol for critically ill Covid-19 patients. The committee had recommended that all critical care patients be treated at one facility.A senior doctor at KEM Hospital, who did not wish to be identified, said specialists were for long suggesting that a big BMC hospital be converted into Covid-19 speciality facility.Nair Hospital Dean Dr Ramesh Bharmal said he has already discussed the conversion of hospital to an exclusive Covid-19 facility with his department heads. “There are some employees who are hesitant. But I am sure we will soon have an understanding. This is the best solution,” he said.