India’s first luxury hotel hosts doctors, nurses on Covid-19 duty

Reeba Zachariah & Sumitra Debroy TNN

04.04.2020

Mumbai: Barely months back, the iconic Taj Mahal Palace, the country’s first luxury hotel situated along the Gateway of India, was throbbing with guests who had flown in from all over the world for the holiday season. Now, its ornate interiors are hosting a series of call rooms for physicians.

With guests emptying out following a travel ban and government looking to expand facilities to combat the coronavirus pandemic, the management has opened the doors of the swank property to house medical staff and ease the pressure on the overburdened public health machinery. Hospital workers in south Mumbai will now be provided accommodation in the hotel’s well-appointed rooms so they can cut down on commute time, rest close to their place of work, and not fear spreading the contagion among family members.

It is not the first time that the Taj Mahal Palace, owned by Indian Hotels Company (IHCL), has provided back-up for healthcare.

During World War I, it was used as a hospital, providing 600 beds. Built in 1903, the Palace, with 285 rooms and nine restaurants, is India’s first luxury hotel. An architectural gem, its design is an amalgamation of Greco-Roman, Islamic and Gothic styles topped by a red-tiled Florentine dome, sitting 240 feet above street level. In addition to the Palace, IHCL has kept its other four hotels in the city at the disposal of doctors and nurses on Covid-19 duty. An IHCL executive said a wing of the Ginger hotel in Andheri East has also been offered as a quarantine centre for Covid-19 suspects. The staff of KB Bhabha Hospital in Bandra has checked in at the nearby Taj Lands End. n Dr Mohan Joshi, who is managing the Sevenhills Hospital in Marol which has a 400-bed isolation facility, said doctors have been allocated rooms in the Taj hotels since Tuesday. “Many of the staffers used to come from far off suburbs such as Kalyan and Virar. The commute itself was taking over 2-3 hours.” A nurse told TOI that for the 7am shift, she had to leave her house in Vasai around 4-4.30am and walk for at least two kilometres to reach the designated pick-up point. A BEST bus would drop her to KEM Hospital, Parel. “It’s not only the walk. The bus gets overcrowded and there is no way to practice social distancing,” she said. Doctors working in designated Covid-19 screening or isolation centres have also been facing resistance from their families or housing societies.

WAH TAJ!