25 July,2020 07:42 AM IST | Mumbai | Vinod Kumar Menon
Hotel The Lalit near the airport had housed doctors working at SevenHills Hospital. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi
With frontline COVID-19 warriors accommodated in hotels across the city, the hotel staffers have been running from pillar to post to get their payments cleared.
While the majority (star and non-hotels) are yet to submit their detailed bills, those who have already submitted them, are facing two issues - some hotels have calculated the bills as per the old rates (the revised rate as per BMC circular dated July 10 was to be charged retrospectively from June 18) and some hotels had provided single-room accommodation instead of the prescribed twin sharing.
Hotel Lalit, which had provided accommodation to a few doctors from SevenHills hospital, and the BKC COVID Centre, is one such facility that is in a fix. The 400-bed Hotel Lalit doesn't have any twin sharing facility.
BMC officials informed mid-day that during the initial stages, the local ward office (K/E ward), and Seven Hills hospital officials were in contact with a senior authority at Hotel Lalit who later quit his job in June.
The bone of contention is a letter that Hotel Lalit wrote to the head of the BKC COVID Centre regarding clearing payments for accommodating more than 100 frontline warriors since May 18.
Sources at the COVID centre, however, claimed that all their requests for accommodating the doctors were made to the local ward office (K/E ward), who in turn made the arrangements at Hotel Lalit and hence payment must be done by the local ward office. The ward office said that the request was made by the COVID centre and the bills must, therefore, be cleared by them.
A bill of approximately Rs 60-70 lakh has been issued to the BKC centre by the hotel.
On May 11, Hotel Lalit received information about doctors coming from 'Wardha' for Seven Hills hospital and the room allocation list was duly received, a letter by the hotel to BKC stated.
The letter claimed that the hotel had mentioned offering single-occupancy rooms and the BMC had agreed to it, along with Seven Hills authorities. The same protocol was followed for doctors from BKC COVID centre. All the bookings were routed through K/E ward.
The BMC letter in this regard stated offering rooms to doctors, nursing and other staff with a concessional rate of Rs 2,000 + GST, and it did not mention the nature of sharing.
"We were supposed to give either lunch or dinner but the hotel was giving all meals at the same concessional rate," the hotel authorities said.
The hotel's letter further alleged that the circular regarding double-occupancy rooms from the BMC commissioner was not given to the hotel and was instead informed after the bills were submitted.
Officials at the BKC COVID centre, said, "It is unfair to ask the dean of BKC COVID centre to clear payments when all room bookings were routed through the local ward office."
The local ward officer, however, said that the office followed the request that came from the respective deans at Seven Hills hospital and the dedicated BKC COVID Centre. "If they recommended single rooms for certain doctors, they got them and twin sharing was allotted to the ones they had recommended," said Prashant Sapkale, Assistant Commissioner K/E ward.
"We have no role to play other than being mere coordinators with the hotel. You need to speak to the respective deans about this," he added.
Dr Rajesh Dere, dean of BKC Centre, said, "We have only given the requirement of doctors' and sisters' accommodation."
Dr Balkrishna Adsul, dean of Seven Hills COVID centre, on the other hand, said, "As per the BMC rule, doctors who are assistant professors, associate professors, professors and deans, are entitled to single-room accommodation. Post-graduate students, MBBS and BAMS doctors, including nurses, are entitled to twin-sharing rooms. I have already signed all the bills of hotels where our doctors were put up as per our pre-decided terms and conditions."
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