COVID-19 surge: Glitches in BBMP bed blocking software cause anxiety

A senior civic official, in charge of bed allotment in Bengaluru, acknowledged these glitches and said ‘the software is under review and they will be fixed’.

Glitches in the hospital bed allocation system of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) are adding to the anxiety of families of critically ill COVID-19 patients. Take the case of Monisha Gupta (name changed), whose mother was in a high dependency unit (HDU) bed allotted by the city’s civic body. Her condition worsened and she needed to be upgraded to an ICU bed. “Hospital staff told me that when they sought an ICU bed through the software, the HDU bed occupied by the patient was displayed as vacant in the BBMP’s bed allotment portal. This meant that it was back in the system ready to be allotted to someone else even though my mother was still using it, and there was no guarantee of her getting an ICU bed,” she recounted. It was almost a day later that the confusion was sorted out and her mother upgraded to an ICU bed in the same hospital. “This is a serious systemic issue that needs to be resolved,” Ms. Gupta said.