Human rights body pulls up BMC over denial of medical facilities

Nair Hospital has not had an in-house CT scan machine for the past three months. File pic

The Maharashtra Human Rights Commission (MHRC) has initiated suo-motu proceedings against the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) more than a week after mid-day revealed that patients were spending Rs 3,000 for a CT scan at private facilities due to a lack of information about the tie-up between the civic-run Nair hospital, state-run JJ hospital and NM Medical Centre.

This newspaper shed light on the issue on June 23 in its report ‘Nair patients forced to go to private centres for CT scan'.

The MHRC, in its summons issued to the municipal commissioner I S Chahal, stated, "It is not possible for poor patients to afford the same. As the medical facilities are denied by the corporation that amounts to violation of human rights for want of medical treatment."

The intent of the tie-up was to provide scans at municipal corporation rates of Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,200 as Nair Hospital has not had an in-house CT scan machine for the past three months. mid-day also revealed that the hospital staff was sending patients to another private lab in Dadar, despite the hospital not having a tie-up with that facility. The hospital has a daily demand for 100 CT scans.

Earlier, the installation of a new machine, costing R4 to R5 crore, was scheduled for October. However, the newly appointed dean of the hospital, Dr Sudhir Medhekar, informed the newspaper that the new machine would be installed by September. "The CT machine has been an issue even before I joined, but I am looking to rectify it at the earliest. We attempted to get the old machine repaired, but the technicians said it is not possible," he explained.

A hearing is scheduled to take place on July 7 before a division bench chaired by Justice K K Tated (retd) and member M A Sayeed. The MHRC has called upon the municipal commissioner to conduct a fact-finding inquiry, file an affidavit in reply before the commission on or before July 7, and disclose information such as when the scanning machine became non-operational, the steps taken to repair it, and the estimated time for repairing the machine.

"It is the duty of the corporation and hospital to provide the medical facilities to the patients who so ever come there," the commission said in its summons.