The civic body has issued notices to 66 private hospitals in the city asking them to reserve half of their beds for COVID-19 patients under the government quota.
These hospitals include reputed chains like Apollo Hospitals, Fortis Hospitals, M.S. Ramaiah, Narayana Health, among others.
Gaurav Gupta, Chief Commissioner, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), told presspersons that with every passing day more beds in the city were being brought under the central bed allocation system of the government, claiming the 50% quota in private hospitals. “We started with 4,300 beds a few days ago and have now gone up to 7,000 beds. We are working towards augmenting this to over 11,000 beds in the next few days,” he said.
Meanwhile, the five private hospitals Mr. Gupta conducted a surprise inspection of and served notices for not allotting beds for the government quota on April 18, have responded positively and have done the needful, a statement from BBMP said.
The civic body has allocated each of 141 primary health centres (PHCs) ₹2 lakh to be used for COVID-19 related expenses. This fund can be used to buy safety gear for those working on testing, tracing and vaccination, and buy any furniture required for vaccination booths. The funds can also be used to create awareness about vaccination, mobilise people from slums and arrange transport to get them to the PHCs to administer jabs, the order issued on Wednesday said.
