Single command centre for COVID-19 bed allotment planned for Mumbai Metropolitan Region

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Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope, on July 22, said the state government was planning to set up a single command centre to oversee coronavirus bed management in hospitals in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR).

The MMR includes Mumbai as well as surrounding satellite cities in Thane, Navi Mumbai and Palghar.

The centre could come up either in Thane or Navi Mumbai with the help of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), Tope said.

There was an issue of bed availability in the MMR and people from satellite towns are coming to Mumbai for treatment, the minister admitted.

A single command centre, on the lines of the existing system in the financial capital, will help, he said.

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"There is already a single command centre in Mumbai for testing and bed management. Its dashboard gives real-time data on availability of beds across the city. No one gets a bed for COVID-19 treatment directly (in Mumbai). He or she has to call the helpline or the ward-level 'war room'," Tope said.

"But in MMR, I found that the beds at field hospitals in Thane city were empty while other satellite cities were facing shortage of beds," Tope said.

The issue was discussed with Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and Thane guardian minister Eknath Shinde and both supported the idea of single command centre to solve the problem of bed availability in MMR, he added.

The health minister also said that gyms in the state would be allowed to reopen at the earliest. "There is a demand to reopen gyms. There is the issue of unemployment too. We will soon frame a standard operating procedure (SOP) to ensure that social distancing is followed and people don't catch infection (at places such as gyms)," he said.

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