Two children-a four-year-old boy from Diva with Covid antibodies and one-year-old girl from Bhiwandi with heart failure-were among those who died in the hospital, said the daily update released by Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) on Monday evening.
Two men aged 35 and 51 years were the other victims. TMC commissioner Abhijit Bangar said average mortality in the hospital is 4.5-5 deaths daily. While there has been a drop in mortality since Sunday, a doctor said there are still 25 patients who are highly critical. “Mortality could increase tomorrow because many of these patients came with severe illnesses,” said the doctor.
TMC officials attributed the decline in deaths on Monday to a couple of measures: refusals to admit critical patients if ICU beds were not available and shifting of patients to the relatively empty Thane Civil Hospital.
“We didn’t turn away patients before, but this possibly led to the deaths of many patients who were critical when they were admitted,” said a senior bureaucrat. “There has been no negligence on the part of the medical teams and we hope this would be revealed after the nine-member committee submits its report by August 25,” he added. The panel, headed by health commissioner Dheeraj Kumar, will review the timeline of incidents and measures taken by hospital staff, and make recommendations to prevent a recurrence. Considering that some relatives of patients complained of problems with the oxygen flow, it is learnt that the committee will verify and test equipment at the hospital.
A former dean told newspersons that one of the factors that led to Sunday’s tragedy was the failure to have a permanent dean at CSM Hospital since 2020 when Sandhya Khadse resigned.
The facility has seen five professors and head of departments being given additional charge of the facility-this, said politicians and experts, had ensured that the dean couldn’t enforce a system or control the staff. In addition, the vacancies are huge: only 43 of the 103 posts for medical officers (MOs) have been filled up till now. For now, a few MOs from various health centres have been despatched to the facility in Thane district to help manage the load. The staff at the hospital, under pressure from various quarters following the surge of deaths, has expressed discontentment about working conditions.
The number of patients in the hospital reduced on Monday. A senior official said the authorities took a review of admitted patients on Sunday and then shifted some to Thane Civil Hospital, which has moved temporarily to a new site. The civil hospital is undergoing a makeover and should be ready next year.
On Sunday, education minister Deepak Kesarkar had said the authorities would publicize information about temporary relocation of the civil hospital. On Monday, authorities put up banners across Thane, announcing the operations of the civil hospital from the Thane Mental Hospital premises. Another measure undertaken by the Kalwa hospital was discharging many patients who were medically stable. The number of occupied beds on Monday thus dropped to 492 from over 580 on Sunday.
BJP MLA Sanjay Kelkar on Monday met civic chief Bangar and suggested formulating an action plan for CSM hospital and also activating operations at the Parking Plaza hospital to tide over the crisis of shortage of beds in the monsooon season.
