Civic clinics to get upgraded

In order to ease the overload on the major civic hospitals, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) the 183 health posts in the city will have facilities of basic healthcare and lab testing. Essential services like getting tests done for viral fever and treatment for common ailments would be done here. Samples for test will be taken at these health posts and sent to private laboratories. All the expenses incurred in this process will be borne by the BMC.

A decision over the same was taken in a meeting between the additional commissioner and dean that took place on Tuesday.

According to Dr Avinash Supe, dean of KEM Hospital and director of major civic hospitals, “ The plan discussed in the meeting is for the betterment of the society to get proper care and it will also help reduce the workload of the hospitals. Things will take time to get set, but they are in the pipeline and soon Mumbaikars will heave a sigh of relief from overcrowding.”

Doctors in the four main city civic hospitals — Sion Hospital, KEM Hospital in Parel, Nair Hospital in Mumbai Central and Cooper Hospital, Vile Parle — work under intense pressure. For instance, each resident doctor has to be on a 30-hour emergency duty twice a week, and attend to up to 150 patients in the Outpatient facility.

Sion Hospital carries out the highest number of deliveries in the city and had pioneered the human milk bank concept in the city. While in KEM, thousands of patients get treated for different aliments. The situation is no different with other major hospitals of the BMC.