Number of beds at VS Hospital cut from 1,155 to 500

AHMEDABAD: A board meeting of the governing body of VS Hospital, chaired by the mayor, Bijal Patel, has passed a resolution reducing the number of beds at the hospital to 500 from 1,155. The reduction came amid protest from other members of the governing body.

The dissenting trustees said the resolution was passed despite their opposition. At the board meeting, the body also increased the VS Hospital budget by Rs 58 crore, over the Rs 172 crore proposed by the hospital administration.

A senior officer said the administration had proposed a budget of Rs 172.7 crore for the 1,155-bed hospital. The governing body, despite cutting the number of beds, increased the budget by Rs 58 crore.

AMC’s deputy municipal commissioner for health, Kuldeep Arya, said the hospital spends as much as 70% of its budget on administrative costs and decreasing the number of beds would not mean that the staff would be reduced, and hence the costs would remain the same.

Interestingly, the governing body allocated Rs 16 crore for security and housekeeping. This is 7% of the total budget. Dr Nishith Shah, a trustee, said the budget is too heavily weighted towards establishment costs which are not traceable and can’t be audited. He said that poor patients are actually just getting a pittance for actual delivery of services. The allocation for medicines is a mere Rs 1.1 crore, which is too low for the number of footfalls of poor patients. He demanded that this allocation be raised so lifesaving drugs are available to poor patients.

The mayor, Bijal Patel, said that the governing body has resolved completely digitize records, apart from introaducing a lab-integrated system, where reports are automatically generated once a test is completed.