In a development that exposed chinks in private medical establishments in Maharashtra, the civic authorities have shut down two major private hospitals in Mumbai after several doctors and nurses tested positive for coronavirus over a span of a week, and ordered quarantining of 92 staff members of a Pune hospital after they came in contact with an infected road accident victim.

On Monday when Mumbai recorded four more deaths and 34 positive cases taking the total number of deaths and infected cases in the metropolis to 34 and 492 respectively, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) sealed the Wockhardt Hospital at Agripdad in south Mumbai, after 26 nurses and three doctors tested positive for Covid-19 during the past one week.

Earlier on Wednesday last, the Jaslok Hospital — acting on the directives of the BMC — stopped new admissions and shut down its outpatient department (OPD) after one of its staff members tested positive for Covid.

Elsewhere in Pune, at least 92 staff members of DY Patil Hospital, including doctors and nurses, were moved out of the main hospital premises and quarantined in neighbouring on the same premises, after a road accident victim, who was treated at the hospital, tested positive for the pandemic.

The closure of Wockhardt Hospital was triggered by a tweet put by leader of the Opposition in Kerala Assembly Ramesh Chennithala, saying: “Called Maharashtra Health Minister Shri. Rajesh Tope ji @rajeshtope11 seeking urgent intervention to ensure safety of 40 Covid19 positive Malayalee nurses working @ a pvt hospital in Mumbai”.

Following closure, the hospital has barred the entry and exit from its premises.

The hospital closure came a day after the BMC declared it as containment zone

BMC’s Additional Municipal Commissioner Suresh Kakani said the staffers of the hospital would not be allowed to go out of the premises until they tested negative for a coronavirus test.

Laying the blame at the door of the hospital management for its failure to take precautionary measures, Kakani said: “The hospital management failed to take precautionary measures. As a consequence, nearly 300 staffers have been quarantined. The BMC has set up a team to look into how the virus spread among so many people in a hospital setting,” he said.

Informed sources in the Wockhardt Hospital said two positiveCovid-19 patients were brought to the hospital from Kasturba Gandhi Hospital on March 20 and they were kept along in a general ICU ward instead of isolation ward, and that too along with non-Covid-19 patients, which said to have resulted in large-scale infection in the hospital.

In a related development, the problem at the Jaslok Hospital came to light after a nurse working at the hospital put out a video message - in which she said that one staffer had contracted Covid-19 - in social media which went viral.

Taking serious cognisance of the video message, the BMC health officials held a meeting with the hospital management and ascertained what the nurse alleged was indeed true

Following the meeting, the Jaslok Hospital on Wednesday stopped the new admissions and closed down its OPD for an indefinite period.

Meanwhile, as many as 92 staff members, including several doctors and nurses, in Pune’s DY Patil Hospital were quarantined on Monday, after an accident victim, who was being treated at the facility, tested positive for Covid-19.

Confirming the development, Jitendra Bhawalkar, dean of the DY Patil Medical College and Hospital said that an autorickshaw driver, who had met with the accident on March 31, had been admitted to the emergency section of the hospital on March 31 after the accident. “The accident victim was operated upon and on the second day, he developed fever. The doctors got suspicious and his samples were sent for testing which came out positive for Covid-19,” he said.

“After we received the report of the autorickshaw driver having testing positive, we tried to ascertain as to who all in the hospital had come in contact with the man. Not wanting to take any chances, we quarantined our 42 doctors and 50 paramedical staff members as a precaution. Samples of all of them have been sent for tests,” Bhawalkar said.

The Hospital management has, meanwhile, de-contaminated the operation theatre where the autorickshaw driver was operated. The affected nurses and doctors have shifted to a separate isolation ward located adjacent to the main hospital in the same premises.