Events & Personalities
Bhabha Hospital brouhaha
Over 500 local residents protested outside the Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) run Khan Bahadur Hormasji Kharshedji Bhabha Hospital in Bandra on December 4, 2017 demanding speedy repair work, and resumption of full medical services, reported The Indian Express on the next day. The Hospital’s operation theatre is defunct, forcing all surgical interventions to be referred to other municipal hospitals. The in-patient department is also shut, stated the news report. Apart from the out-patient department, only the medicine and pediatric departments are functioning. The orthopedic, surgery, gynecology, and other departments have stopped admitting patients. According to local municipal corporator Dr Saeeda Khan, who was quoted in the IE report, the BMC spent Rs 3.08 crore on the Hospital’s repairs since 2015, but only external repairs have taken place.
The Hospital was in the news in October this year for restricting the timings of its pharmacy. The decision of the Hospital to discontinue the practice of keeping its pharmacy open 24/7 due to lack of staff has become "a matter of concern for the 200 odd patients who visit the Hospital after the unit closes,” reported the mid-day of October 26. With a daily patient inflow of 1,000, the Hospital management allegedly took this decision due to the "demands of the workers’ union that pharmacists should not be made to work for night shifts, during weekends and public holidays,” said the newspaper. While the medical superintendent of the Hospital Dr Pradip Jadhav informed the newspaper that "there is not enough staff to keep the pharmacy open 24/7, assistant municipal commissioner Sunil Dhamane, was quoted as saying "adequate steps were being taken to appoint more people at the pharmacy.” Social activist and local resident Aftab Siddique was quoted as stating that the Hospital also "needs to supply vital medicines, especially those for malaria and blood pressure, properly.”
Parsiana had earlier reported on the alleged "lack of medicines, staff’s misbehavior with patients and visitors and lack of security (see "Travails at Bhabha,” Parsiana, May 21, 2017).” The Hospital had opened its doors in December 2016 after being shut for a year-and-a-half for extensive repairs. "The hospital was inaugurated in a hurry before the BMC elections in December 2016. But till date, most of its facilities are defunct. Its blood bank license has not been renewed,” Khan told IE.
The Hospital was in the news in October this year for restricting the timings of its pharmacy. The decision of the Hospital to discontinue the practice of keeping its pharmacy open 24/7 due to lack of staff has become "a matter of concern for the 200 odd patients who visit the Hospital after the unit closes,” reported the mid-day of October 26. With a daily patient inflow of 1,000, the Hospital management allegedly took this decision due to the "demands of the workers’ union that pharmacists should not be made to work for night shifts, during weekends and public holidays,” said the newspaper. While the medical superintendent of the Hospital Dr Pradip Jadhav informed the newspaper that "there is not enough staff to keep the pharmacy open 24/7, assistant municipal commissioner Sunil Dhamane, was quoted as saying "adequate steps were being taken to appoint more people at the pharmacy.” Social activist and local resident Aftab Siddique was quoted as stating that the Hospital also "needs to supply vital medicines, especially those for malaria and blood pressure, properly.”
Parsiana had earlier reported on the alleged "lack of medicines, staff’s misbehavior with patients and visitors and lack of security (see "Travails at Bhabha,” Parsiana, May 21, 2017).” The Hospital had opened its doors in December 2016 after being shut for a year-and-a-half for extensive repairs. "The hospital was inaugurated in a hurry before the BMC elections in December 2016. But till date, most of its facilities are defunct. Its blood bank license has not been renewed,” Khan told IE.
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