Mumbai After dedicating its services to Covid for the last two years, the 460-bed state-run St George Hospital, the city’s last dedicated Covid facility, is set to start non-Covid services from May 5.
The 342-year-old colonial-era structure, which is one of the four hospitals that are a part of the Sir JJ Group of Hospitals, discharged its last three Covid patients on Tuesday.
From May 5, the hospital will have a dedicated Covid ward with 50 beds and 12 ICU beds. In last two years, 5,506 Covid patients were treated and discharged and the hospital saw 1,119 Covid deaths.
“In the last two weeks, we have not seen a single new admission. We are all set to resume our non-Covid patient care from May 5. We will keep one ward to treat Covid patients, if any,” said Dr Akash Khobragade, medical superintendent of St George’s Hospital.
He said that before the pandemic, the hospital had 10 beds in its intensive care unit (ICU) and over the last two years, the hospital converted three wards and outpatient departments into ICUs. “Now that we resume our non-Covid work, we have rearranged these ICUs back to what it was. However, our ICU will now have 20 beds instead of 10,” said Dr Khobragade.
The hospital, in the pre-pandemic days, saw 180 admitted patients at any given point and had 800-900 outdoor patients. In April 2020, the 460 beds were reduced to 320 beds to meet the social distancing norms.The hospital has 107 ventilators, which will now be divided between JJ Hospital, GT Hospital and Cama and Albless Maternity Hospital.
In the post-covid-19 era, the hospital also plans to start a kidney dialysis unit with 12 beds. “The hospital didn’t have a dialysis unit earlier. During the pandemic, we did have dialysis management for Covid patients. We felt a dire need to have such a unit and we are soon going to start it,” said a doctor from the nephrology department of the hospital.