Mumbai: Jumbo hospital in BKC for Covid-19 patients achieves 10,000 milestone

MUMBAI: The BKC jumbo hospital, one of the first field hospitals created in Mumbai and in the country to tackle a surge in Covid-19 cases, completed treating 10,000 patients on Saturday. Built from scratch on a war footing on the MMDRA grounds that was till then known for hosting mega exhibitions to political rallies, the jumbo field hospital can no longer be called 'makeshift' by any measure.
Since it admitted the first patient on May 25, the hospital has received over 10,023 patients of which 8,141 patients have been treated and discharged.Phase I of the centre is exclusively run by the BMC while Phase II, which includes a 108-bed ICU, has been outsourced. Phase I of the hospital, which started with 100 beds, now has over 2,000 beds, including 1,000 with oxygen support and 12 dialysis beds. As on Sunday, 766 patients were under treatment there.

Dean Dr Rajesh Dere recalled how a team of seven to eight doctors from Sion Hospital was handed over the facility, built by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) at a cost of Rs 53 crore, to be converted into a fully functional hospital. "Primarily, the challenge started from hiring people and convincing them the structure could function as a real hospital," said Dr Dere, adding how even during cyclone Nisarga, it remained unaffected although patients were moved out for safety reasons.
The small team of nearly 18 doctors, 24 nurses, 30 ward boys has now grown into a full-fledged army of 231 doctors, 222 nurses, 31 technicians and 30 administrative persons, among others. Overall 600 people now work round-the-clock to man the 58 wards. "Initially, we were recruiting, arranging medicines from Sion Hospital or running to chemists at 3am sometimes and training new appointees. Above all, we had to allay fears of contracting Covid among many who were joining us," said Dr Sopan Patil, a medical officer who was part of the core team.
Additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani said jumbo centres have played a crucial part in the city's fight against Covid as the fear of cross-infection was looming in major hospitals. Importantly, Dr Dere said a good team can ensure a good outcome. "Nearly 89% patients treated here had comorbidities, but there were no deaths," he said. Also, 35% of the patients were from outside the city, including Thane (10%), Bhiwandi (6%), Kalyan (3%) and around 2% from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Raigad and Solapur," said Dere.
The centre will soon start its own CT scan unit. It has already set up a laboratory that can give results for tests such as Ddimer and IL6 in less than 30minutes. In four days, a 28-bed high-dependency unit will be started.
Health researcher Dr Ravi Duggal said Indian public health systems work reasonably well in a project approach than a comprehensive one. "When on a war footing, such as polio eradication campaign, we traditionally do a good job since they are more targeted and can cut through bureaucracy," he said.