Anticipating the third wave of the deadly Covid 19 to hit the maximum city soon, the Maharashtra tourism and environment minister Aaditya Thackeray on Monday suggested creating a pediatric Covid care ward and creches. Thackeray proposed this during a meeting with a top BMC official on Monday.
While the state government and Mumbai civic body are preparing for the worst, Thackeray on Monday met Additional Municipal Commissioner Sanjeev Jaiswal and discussed the measures taken to prepare for the third wave.
Taking to Twitter, Thackeray wrote, "As we prepare for third-wave capacity building in Maharashtra, I met AMC Sanjeev Jaiswal ji to discuss the measures we`ve undertaken in Mumbai. I have suggested to him that we create a paediatric covid care ward anticipating the next wave and the demographic it may target."
The civic body is already acquiring as many beds as possible and working on the seamless supply and management of oxygen across city hospitals. On Monday the civic body also increased 1500 more beds at Goregaon's NESCO. Of these 1500 newly handed over beds of covid19 patients 1000 are oxygen beds.
"Since last year, our jumbo Covid care centres also have units of Covid positive dialysis, Covid positive maternity care as well. As the virus mutates and targets different age groups, our response too must actively mutate," said Thackeray.
He added: "Mumbai saw a massive spike last month and sustained it because of constant capacity increase in beds & facilities. We are now focused on creating almost 6500 O2 beds and approximately 1500 more ICU/ HDU beds in the coming few days at the new jumbos coming up."
"Considering the online age group that is still vulnerable and not yet introduced to the vaccination process, for now, we need to prepare to cater to this age group. While we are preparing for the worst, it is a very good idea to create pediatric Covid care wards. We will soon create them," said a senior BMC official said.