Mumbai: The Bombay high court (HC) has asked the Malegaon Municipal Corporation (MMC) to take the help of charitable trusts and corporates to overcome the shortage of doctors in its hospitals. The suggestions were prompted after the corporation informed the court that it had failed to get any applications for the 25 vacant posts despite floating advertisements regarding the same last week.
A division bench of justices Naresh Patil and Anuja Prabhudessai was hearing a public interest litigation filed by a social activist from Malegaon claiming that shortage of doctors in civic run hospitals was resulting in more than 17,000 patients visiting the hospitals every month not being able to get proper treatment. The petitioner had sought various reliefs in the form of the hospitals being taken over by the state or appointment of some NGO to take over the daily functioning of the civic hospitals.
Advocate Shriniwas Patwardhan appearing on behalf of the corporation said that it did not have sufficient funds to pay doctors the salaries that were commensurate with private or government run hospitals as a result of
After hearing the submissions, the bench suggested that the corporators and mayor of Malegaon should take proactive steps to alleviate the problems faced by the civic-run
hospitals.
