Mid-Day: Mumbai: Friday,
March 21, 2014.
In its
edition dated February 27, mid-day exposed the rampant mismanagement of
services and utter apathy towards patients on display at a recently inaugurated
hospital in Kandivli, which was rebuilt at a whopping cost of Rs 167 crore (At
Rs 167 cr BMC hospital, patients wait for hours or are turned away).
And now,
figures obtained under the Right to Information (RTI) Act have confirmed what mid-day
had already discovered over 536 people have lost their lives in less than six
months at the Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Municipal General Hospital. Sena chief
Uddhav Thackeray inaugurated the newly constructed 324-bed hospital on September
2, last year. Its was earlier called Centenary Hospital.
Mehul
Kataria, an RTI activist from Kandivli, obtained the figures from the civic run
hospital. In a reply to the RTI queries, Dr Mangesh Budhkar, deputy medical
superintendent of the hospital, admitted that 536 deaths have been reported in
the hospital since its inception. This means, on an average 107 patients have
died in its premises every month.
At 222, the
medicine ward has claimed the maximum number of patients, while 154 deaths have
occurred in the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU). Not a single organ donation
initiative has been undertaken by the hospital. Katariya said, “The hospital is
in a complete mess, and there are no senior MD doctors available on board.
The hospital
is mostly manned by students from Nair Medical College, and MBBS doctors handle
hundreds of OPD patients daily. They have set up an MRI and CT scan centre, but
the CT scan facility isn’t on offer. Appointments for MRI scans are given at
least a month after registration. For orthopaedic and general surgeries, the
patients are put on a waiting list.
The hospital
does not have a blood bank facility, nor any cardiologist or cardiac ward,
which means that they have to refer patients who come with heart attacks to
other hospitals.” In its report, mid-day had revealed that the hospital has
only honorary postgraduate senior doctors, who attend the hospital once in a
week. It has no full time lecturers or professors with postgraduate degrees.
Most of the
doctors are either from Bhagwati Hospital or MBBS graduates from Nair Hospital,
who are not trained to handle critical cases. None of the three branches of
medicine, surgery and orthopaedics have postgraduate doctors. Dr Ashish Tiwari,
CEO, Zynova hospitals, said, “An average number of 107 deaths per month in a
hospital with 324 beds is quite alarming.
A thorough
hospital audit by independent and impartial agency can bring lots of changes.
Many things could be responsible for this level of medical care and nursing
care, availability of life-saving drugs and equipment, promptness and
professional skills of paramedical staff, level of ICU care, availability of
all senior doctors and operation procedures.”
Septicaemia a
major cause of death:
One of the
major causes of death in the hospital is due to septicaemia, other causes being
chronic renal failure, tuberculosis, and pneumonia. mid-day had mentioned how
vast space in the 3.5 lakh square feet hospital has been left unused, while a
single hall has been broken up into smaller enclosures to serve as wards for
ENT, Medicine, Surgery, Orthopaedics and Psychiatry. This raises the chances of
infection spreading from one ward to another.
The other
side:
We are likely
to get full-time intensivists for MICU and SICU, who are trained in handling
critical patients. As this hospital works under the PPP model, we are sure we
may be able to serve the patients better. At present, the patient inflow is
very high, as Bhagwati hospital in Borivli is under repair. Once Bhagwati
becomes operational again, a large number of patients would go there, reducing
the pressure on our hospital, decreasing the mortality numbers. - Dr Mahesh
Budhkar, deputy medical superintendent.
Figure
File:
·
536-Total
number of deaths between September 10, 2013 and February 26, 2014 at the
hospital
·
107-The
average number of deaths at the hospital per month
· 60-Approximate
number of deaths per month at Rajawadi Hospital
·
10-Approximate
number of deaths per month at Shatabdi Hospital in Govandi
·
65-Approximate
number of deaths a month at Cooper Hospital, Andheri
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