BENGALURU: Although active cases in Bengaluru have climbed beyond the 2. 3 lakh mark — daily fresh cases over the past week have been anywhere between 20,000 to 25,000 on average — the government’s much publicised Covid Care Centres (CCCs) in the capital have barely had any takers.
Blame it on the convenience of home isolation, the high number of mild and asymptomatic cases or lack of trust in the government system, but as many as 17 operational CCCs in the city have a total estimated patient admission of only 125 people as on Monday.
Given the scenario, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) plans to hold back on launching new CCCs — it had planned 27 — and is likely to rollback even some of the ones that are operational. It plans to keep only a few open in case of emergencies. Officials suggest the civic agency may keep not more than eight CCCs open.
KV Thrilok Chandra, BBMP special commissioner (health) admitted that of the 17 CCCs that are currently operational, only four have patients occupying beds.
“The four CCCs which have admissions are HAL, which has the greatest number of patients, Karmikara Bhavan (Bannerghatta Main Road), Government Ayurveda and Medical College (near Majestic) and Kempegowda Samudaya Bhavan (Mahalakshmi Layout),” said Chandra.
As a result of the low admissions, BBMP will now redirect patients to only the select few which will continue to remain operational.
Gaurav Gupta, BBMP chief commissioner, confirmed most of the CCCs will be kept dormant and human resources and medical supplies will be redirected to locations which require them. Staying prepared “We are not going to completely shut down all CCCs. We will maintain at least a few of them as the virus trajectory is unpredictable,” Gupta said. “While, thankfully, the number of people requiring hospitalisation or CCC admissions are minimal, we will continue to be prepared in case there is an immediate surge. ”
Gupta claimed expenditure on setting up CCCs was not too high this time as capital investment in most places has already been made during the second wave of and these were only reopened.
“These are primarily hostels, community halls and other such locations where beds are already in place. The remaining expenditure on human resource and medical infrastructure, includin g oxygen concentrators, will be redirected to places which continue to remain open or other government hospitals,” said Gupta.
CCCs had run into controversy during the second Covid-19 wave as most of them were seen as ‘white elephants’ with unwarranted — and in some cases inflated — sums being spent to set them up. Then chief minister BS Yediyurappa had also taken officials to task in this regard.
