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This is an archive article published on June 1, 2021

Pune: No patients at Auto Cluster hospital, PCMC shuts it down; jumbo hospital may also be shut soon

"We have closed down Auto Cluster hospital on Monday. This is because on Sunday, it had one patient and on Monday, it had no patient," said Municipal Commissioner Rajesh Patil.

PCMC, PCMC shuts down Auto Cluster hospital, YMC, pune news, pune latest news, pune covid news, pune coronavirus, pune covid cases news, pune today news, pune local news, new pune news, pune covid 19 cases, covid, pune today news, latest pune newsThe Auto-cluster hospital. Patil said if in the absence of patients, the hospital is allowed to continue, they have to pay per bed charges to the contractor.

As the number of active Covid-19 cases fell to its lowest in four months in Pimpri-Chinchwad on Monday, the civic body shut down its 200-bed Auto Cluster Hospital, which had no patients. The PCMC administration said it may also close down the 816-bed jumbo hospital by June 10 if there were no patients. At the same, the administration is planning to partially convert YCM hospital into a non-Covid facility.

By Monday evening, Pimpri-Chinchwad had nearly 5,000 active Covid-19 cases, of whom 2,500 were hospitalised. Pimpri-Chinchwad has 135 dedicated Covid hospitals and a bed capacity of 10,000, including the ones in civic and private Covid care centres.

“We have closed down Auto Cluster Hospital on Monday. It had only one patient on Sunday and no patients on Monday,” said Municipal Commissioner Rajesh Patil.

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The PCMC chief said the civic body is planning to close down the jumbo hospital at Nehrunagar, which had only 100 patients on Monday evening. “The jumbo hospital has fewer patients now. We will take a call regarding its closure on June 10, depending on the number of patients… we are also planning to partially convert YCM Hospital into a non-Covid one. The decision will be taken soon,” he said.

Earlier, this week, PCMC had shut down five Covid care centres as well.

Patil said new hospitals set up by PCMC at Thergaon and Akurdi, with collective capacity of 350 beds, will become operational by June 5. “Both these hospitals will be dedicated Covid hospitals,” he said.

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Additional Municipal Commissioner Ulhas Jagtap, who was looking after the Auto Cluster facility, said, “The facility was run by a private contractor since last September. It was taken over by PCMC on May 9. We will pay the salaries of the doctors, nurses and other staff of the hospital till May 31.”

The hospital was taken over by the PCMC after allegations surfaced that doctors at the facility took a bribe in exchange of providing an ICU bed to a Covid-19 patient. Two doctors of the Auto Cluster Hospital and two of a private hospital were arrested in connection with the case.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


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