Mumbai: After 5 years and Rs 43 cr, Bhagwati Hospital to reopen minus OT

Five years and Rs 43 crore later all that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation BMC has to show for the revamped superspeciality Bhagwati Hospital in Borivli is a 110bed facility that doesnrsquot even have an operation theatre or adequate doctorsThe 11storey newlook Bhagwati Hospital is expected to reopen this month with 110 beds It is supposed to be turned into a 1000bed superspeciality centreAn RTI query filed by social activist Dhananjay Junnarkar has revealed that not only will the 11storey hospital be unable to perform surgeries when it likely reopens this month but just 20 doctors will run the entire facility Besides only Rs 12 crore of the Rs 43 crore released by the BMC from 20072015 has gone into its constructionThe hospital will largely cater to patients from Borivli to Safala and PalgharIt was decommissioned in 2013 after the BMC decided to convert the 374bed facility into a 1000bed superspeciality centre with a postgraduate medical collegeOvershooting the June 2014 deadline by almost two years the BMC is expected to launch phase1 of the project mdash with 110 beds including a 10bed medical intensive care unit ward mdash this month Other facilities at the hospital are slated to be launched later this yearToo little to offerThe hospital was to have 181 staffers including a medical superintendent and a senior medical officer but only 10 doctors have been allotted for the 110bed facility which includes an outpatient department a 24hour emergency ward an Xray department a mortuary and a pharmacyItrsquos anybodyrsquos guess that juggling the different wards will be an arduous task for the few doctorsBesides officials say only one ambulance will be provided to the hospital but no hearse van While the hospital has claimed that it will have a pathology collection room it is reportedly yet to get the necessary licences to start a blood bank mdash a requisite for any hospital to become operational according FDA normsIts emergency ward as per the response to the RTI application will have only five beds Three floors of the building are for residential purposes two for undertraining nursing staff with 30 rooms and one for resident doctors with around 15 roomsColossal wasteJunnarkar who is also the secretary of the city unit of the Congress says the revamped hospital will be a waste of public funds if it refers patients elsewhere for surgeriesldquoThe BMC has built a plush multistory building in the heart of Borivli but when I asked how many beds have been reserved for each department officials said that performing operations will not be possible in the building Of what use is the hospital if patients with emergencies still have to go elsewhererdquoJunnarkar points out that relatives of the dead will be forced to shell out huge sums of money to hire private hearsesldquoEven if we ignore the absence of an operation theatre how will 20 doctors with the help of two senior doctors run a 110bed facility 24x7rdquo he asksMahendra Wadiwal chief medical superintendent of BMCrun peripheral hospitals and Sanjay Deshmukh additional commissioner health BMC were unavailable for comments