Inaugurated a week ago by the chief minister, a 1,800-bed Dedicated COVID Health Centre (CHC) in Mulund is lying unused for want of medical staff. This at a time when COVID-19-affected citizens are struggling to find ICU beds — the facility has 215 of these.

Built by the CIDCO, the facility is also supposed to house 500 patients from Thane. According to the BMC's official data, out of the 22,821 beds in the city, 10,081 are vacant. The Mulund CHC has 1,560 isolation beds, 215 ICU beds and 75 beds for dialysis patients.