49 Hospitals in Mumbai’s Govandi, Mankhurd, Shivaji Nagar and Trombay Operating Illegally According to RTI Query Answered By BMC
49 hospitals in Mumbai’s M-East ward, which includes Govandi, Mankhurd, Shivaji Nagar and Trombay, to be functioning illegally.
BMC’s reply to an RTI filed by an activist has revealed that 49 hospitals in Mumbai’s M-East ward, which includes Govandi, Mankhurd, Shivaji Nagar and Trombay, to be functioning illegally. These unauthorised hospitals and nursing homes have been operating without any fire compliance certification or NOCs from the pollution control board. Moreover, 39 of these hospitals have been given license even after flouting basic norms. According to a news report by CNN News 18, many of these unregistered hospitals are also being investigated for maternal deaths.
Shakeel Ahmed Shaikh, an RTI activist, spoke to the news channel saying that the BMC has failed to check on these hospitals despite filing for prosecution against them in the court. The civic body has shown laxity in taking any definite action against them. And many of them have been operating since they were first reported in 2013 till 2017.
Dr Parthiv Sanghvi, Secretary IMA, rues about the situation saying that it shows BMC’s apathy and callousness towards healthcare. “Ultimately if a catastrophe is to take place, which will eventually take place, because there are no rules and regulations. Nobody is coming to monitor such nursing homes,” he says. Dr Sanghvi also believes that such nursing homes are run by quacks.
Civic officials told Mumbai Mirror that such institutions and nursing homes function under a name for 11 months at a time. The tenants then change and a new hospital appears at the same spot, but with a new name. BMC’s efforts to clamp down on such unregistered hospitals has raised concerns from various quarters. In a similar case, a hospital from Nalasopara vanished overnight after the death of a female patient due to fever.
Advocate Godfrey Pimenta told Mumbai Mirror that BMC is well aware of such illegally-operating hospitals after the RTI filed in the wake of Kamala Mills fire. He stated that these establishments cannot function without the knowledge of civic officials.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 01, 2018 02:58 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).