The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has increased the number of mobile triaging units to around 370 in order to catch up with an increase in the number of Covid-19 cases in the city.
The mobile units, comprising of medical staff and ambulance, are sent to the residence of patients to assess their medical condition and allocate hospital beds on a need basis.
Officials, however, admit that many symptomatic patients are getting treated in private hospitals at their own cost instead of using the free facilities offered by the government.
“The hospitalisation rate has been low even though the cases are increasing on a daily basis. We have reserved beds in private hospitals. There is no problem in the availability or allocation of beds,” said BBMP Chief Commissioner Gaurav Gupta.
According to the BBMP’s daily bulletin, a total of 4,774 general beds, 399 beds in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), and 417 beds in ICU with ventilator facility are currently unoccupied. There are, however, 44 Covid-19 patients on the ventilator and another 76 in the ICU.
As the Covid-19 management has been decentralised to assembly constituencies this time, the BBMP-appointed staff has been directed to call the patients soon after they test positive.
“The global average for positivity rate is around 35%. We estimate that the positive cases may not go beyond 35,000 a day as we are able to test only about 1 lakh people daily,” a BBMP official said.
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Published 20 January 2022, 22:31 IST