Mumbai Mirror: Mumbai: Friday, 14 November 2025.
At Mumbai’s St George Hospital, what should have been a routine disclosure under the Right to Information Act has instead exposed a glaring structural failure one that strikes at the heart of accountability in a government hospital’s most sensitive department.
When Advocate Tushar
Bhosale filed an RTI seeking the ICU’s shift-wise duty schedules from 2024
onward, he expected a simple roster. What the hospital admitted instead was
staggering: “Although ICU duty schedules are prepared every 2 to 3 months, they
are not preserved. There is no official record of which doctor was responsible
for patient care on a given day. No archival rosters. No attendance logs. No
trace,” read the RTI reply.
Advocate Bhosale further said that for an ICU where decisions can determine life or death the absence of preserved duty logs is not merely sloppy administration; it is an institutional blind spot that turns off scrutiny. Without those records, the hospital cannot establish who held clinical charge during critical hours. Any internal audit, external review, or medico-legal investigation is left to guesswork. Section 4(1)(a) of the RTI Act requires public authorities to maintain records in a way that makes them accessible. Medical regulatory frameworks from the former Medical Council of India to today’s National Medical Commission require hospitals to document staff deployment and patient care responsibilities.
Meanwhile, Advocate Bhosale also filed a parallel complaint on the Aaple Sarkar portal, raising even more serious concerns: alleged irregularities in ICU attendance, including claims that entries were routed through a Registered Medical Practitioner who acted as an intermediary, purportedly allowing doctors to mark their attendance even when they were not present.
The Medical Education Department forwarded the complaint to the hospital, forcing an examination that internal mechanisms failed to trigger.
“On November 10, hospital officer Deepak Lad confirmed that a committee would be constituted to investigate. A committee is a standard response but its timing is telling. These lapses came to light not because the hospital caught them, but because an external complainant compelled the system to act,” confirmed a MEDD official.
What began as a simple request for a roster has instead revealed a system unprepared or unwilling to document responsibility in one of its most critical departments.
“The ICU duty roster at St George’s Hospital is prepared by JJ Hospital and updated every 2 to 3 months. Only recent schedules are retained, and requests for detailed duty information including those that may compromise staff safety often amount to unnecessary targeting of our institution,” said Dr Vinayak Sawardekar, Medical Superintendent of St George’s Hospital.
At Mumbai’s St George Hospital, what should have been a routine disclosure under the Right to Information Act has instead exposed a glaring structural failure one that strikes at the heart of accountability in a government hospital’s most sensitive department.
 |
| A routine query has uncovered major accountability gaps no preserved rosters, attendance logs to show who was on uty in the ICU |
Advocate Bhosale further said that for an ICU where decisions can determine life or death the absence of preserved duty logs is not merely sloppy administration; it is an institutional blind spot that turns off scrutiny. Without those records, the hospital cannot establish who held clinical charge during critical hours. Any internal audit, external review, or medico-legal investigation is left to guesswork. Section 4(1)(a) of the RTI Act requires public authorities to maintain records in a way that makes them accessible. Medical regulatory frameworks from the former Medical Council of India to today’s National Medical Commission require hospitals to document staff deployment and patient care responsibilities.
Meanwhile, Advocate Bhosale also filed a parallel complaint on the Aaple Sarkar portal, raising even more serious concerns: alleged irregularities in ICU attendance, including claims that entries were routed through a Registered Medical Practitioner who acted as an intermediary, purportedly allowing doctors to mark their attendance even when they were not present.
The Medical Education Department forwarded the complaint to the hospital, forcing an examination that internal mechanisms failed to trigger.
“On November 10, hospital officer Deepak Lad confirmed that a committee would be constituted to investigate. A committee is a standard response but its timing is telling. These lapses came to light not because the hospital caught them, but because an external complainant compelled the system to act,” confirmed a MEDD official.
What began as a simple request for a roster has instead revealed a system unprepared or unwilling to document responsibility in one of its most critical departments.
“The ICU duty roster at St George’s Hospital is prepared by JJ Hospital and updated every 2 to 3 months. Only recent schedules are retained, and requests for detailed duty information including those that may compromise staff safety often amount to unnecessary targeting of our institution,” said Dr Vinayak Sawardekar, Medical Superintendent of St George’s Hospital.
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