mumbai mumbai the countrys financial capital has roughly 50000 hospital beds while this figure falls short of the world health organisations ideal 1200 bedtopopulation ratio mumbai looks like a healthcare haven in comparison to the satellite cities around itthe nine civic bodies around the bmc that have reimposed a stringent lockdown due to worsening of the covid19 outbreak have inadequate beds as well as medical staffhealthcare for residents of these areas means going to the neighbourhood nursing home or taking a long drive to a hospital in mumbaithe emergency over covid19 underlines this officials from these satellite towns have been calling up the bmc and requesting beds and medicines for their patients said additional municipal commissioner suresh kakaniconsider the vasaivirar township which has 2000 beds for 125 lakh people according to the 2011 census this works out to one bed per 625 peoplepanvel touted as the next real estate destination in the greater mumbai region due to the second airport plan has one 100bedded subdistrict hospital run by the state government for its eight lakh population healthcare is delivered by the 200odd nursing homes and small private hospitals that collectively have 5540 bedsmirabhayander home to 15 lakh people has 2740 beds its lone public entitythe 150bedded pandit bhimsen joshi hospital in bhayander westcame up after a 2007 pil in the bombay high court following the train blasts of july 2006in the eastern end the kalyandombivli municipal corporation claims the twin cities have 4720 beds but kdmc only manages 220 of theserukminibai hospital with 120 and shastri nagar hospital with 100public health analyst ravi duggal said satellite cities dont have a robust healthcare system when compared to mumbai many places such as mira road and bhayander dont have primary healthcare centres or dispensaries like mumbai does he saidonly the two big satellite cities of navi mumbai and thane are comparatively better while the 22 lakh population of thane city has access to 7420 hospital beds including 700 in the public sector the 15 lakhplus population of navi mumbai has 8000 600 public sector the private sector is clearly the main healthcare provider in both these cities said duggalbut the three months of the covid outbreak have shown most patients are being treated in public sector hospitals and this is where the satellite towns have fallen so woefully short moreover most beds in the nine municipal entities around mumbai are in the nursing home sector except for a couple of big hospitals one can only see 10bedded or 15bedded nursing homes in these areas added duggalhealth budget is clearly inadequate here mirabhayander corporator dhruvkishore patil said the civic bodys health budget of rs 10 crore is inadequate to meet the needs of the populationpanvel city municipal corporation spends only rs 30 crore for healthcare by contrast the bmc has a health budget of rs 4260 crore for 2020inputs by malathy iyer sandhya nair b b nayak shrutika sukhi umesh parida pradeep gupta