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MUMBAI: The BMC will add 120 staffers to its Covid-19 war rooms this week to handle the overwhelming surge in daily calls. The BMC receives around 8,000 calls a day on its 1916 helpline and the 24 ward war rooms from Covid patients and their relatives looking for beds, ambulances and RT-PCR tests.
BMC officials said they have begun to deploy more Class III staffers to help patients get beds and ICU beds, contacts of testing laboratories, ambulances and other Covid queries.
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The BMC’s local ward-level war rooms had helped lakhs of Covid patients since they were set up last year. Now as there is a surge in cases, they are overwhelmed with calls and there are several complaints that they do not respond on time. As mayor Kishori Pednekar said, all calls must be attended immediately and patients and kin must be given a response. The ward war room is a most critical mechanism in the Covid b