With the expected mega-spike in COVID-19 cases in Mumbai, the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has undertaken a programme of massive augmentation of hospitals beds for the country's commercial capital, officials said on May 15.

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The Chief Minister on May 15 inspected a huge 1,000-plus bed COVID Care Centre-2 that has come up at the NESCO Complex in Goregaon suburb. The BMC has categorized the programme in three parts -- CCC, Dedicated COVID Health Centres (DCHC) and Dedicated COVID Hospitals (DCH) -- to take care of the anticipated additional load over the next few weeks.

In Mumbai, three jumbo facilities are coming up in Bandra Kurla Complex, NESCO and another Global Impact Hub, in Thane. The CCC-1 where suspects or contacts admitted are currently expanded to nearly 23,000 beds, CCC-2 where asymptomatic positive or mild cases are housed is enhanced to over 34,250 beds in 241 locations. Several CCC-2 facilities have been upgraded with oxygen and intensive care units, including at the National Sports Club of India at Worli. "With these upgrades, the CCC-2 faciltiies would be able to treat moderate patients on the site and prevent congestion at full-fledged COVID-19 hospitals," said a BMC official.

The BMC Municipal Commissioner has directed enhanced contact tracing and quarantining to ensure the curve starts flattening. The Tourism Minister who inspected the BKC facility said it will have 1,000-plus beds with 250 oxygen supply beds, and 250 high dependence beds. "Besides, the second phase of the unit would have a jumbo dependency bed area exclusively for high symptomatic cases," the Minister added.

The BMC, through its Assistant Municipal Commissioners in 24 wards, has already taken over 180-plus sites such as hotels, lodges, marriage halls, gymkhana, schools and colleges for setting up institutional quarantine for at least 12,000 people. To handle more cases, the BMC has added 25 hospitals with 1,139 beds for severe cases, and 2,000 beds in private hospitals.