No bed available? BMC in talks to refer patients to charitable hospitals

MUMBAI: In a bid to reduce the crowds at its three superspecialty hospitals, the BMC is working with the charity commissioner to provide free or subsided beds in the city’s five-star hospitals to some of the patients referred from smaller hospitals.

Additional municipal commissioner Idzes Kundan told TOI that the BMC is in talks with the charity commissioner so that patients unable to find a bed in any of the civic hospitals could be accommodated in charitable hospitals including Jaslok, Lilavati and Nanavati.

The city has 40,000 hospital beds, with BMC-run hospitals accounting for 11,900 or 30% of the beds. “Of these 11,900 beds, 5,400 are in our major hospitals and 6,500 in peripheral or suburban hospitals,” said Kundan.

The three superspecialty hospitals—KEM in Parel, Nair in Mumbai Central and Sion Hospital—manage 19.8 lakh in-patients every year. The 17 suburban hospitals handle 58 lakh patients annually. The civic hospitals also treat lakhs of patients on an outpatient basis. “Given this load, we need to decongest the major hospitals and strengthen the peripheral hospitals, dispensaries and health posts,” said Kundan.

Public health experts have pointed out that BMC’s three super-specialty hospitals end up treating cold and cough patients when they should be focusing on critically ill patients. It is in this backdrop that the BMC has roped in the charity commissioner’s office, which handles free and subsided beds at 75 charity trust-run hospitals. “We tied up with the charity commissioner so that that BMC should get access to the 75 hospitals which are supposed to reserve 10% beds for poor patients,” she said. This means 868 beds are available for patients.

The trust-run hospitals also have to provide 20% beds at a subsidized cost to economically backward patients. These hospitals have to provide the charity commissioner’s office with details of these free and subsided beds and treatment, but there is widespread allegation that these hospitals don’t fulfil their task.

In order to streamline the new plan, the BMC plans to put up screens in all its hospitals to show the number of unaccommodated beds in the charity-run hospitals. “An officer on special duty will be appointed to coordinate between BMC hospitals and those run by charity trusts,” said KEM Hospital dean Dr Hemant Deshmukh.

At present, the municipal corporation is working out the logistics of how to transfer patients from its peripheral hospitals to the private ones.