The civic body constructed the hospitals at Airoli, Nerul and Belapur and inaugurated them last year, but they are only running OPDs owing to lack of staff and doctors
The three civic hospitals inaugurated by the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) in the month of August last year are yet to be fully operational.
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The hospital at Nerul. An NMMC official said they are hiring staff, hence the date for making these hospitals fully operational is not yet decided
An official says the reason behind this is the lack of staff, which they are still hiring. At the time of the inauguration, the municipal authorities had claimed they would start the hospitals on full-fledged basis within a span of four months.
The hospital at Belapur. The NMMC official says it will take time for the hospitals to be fully operational
However, with the said period long over, there is still no sign of activity in these hospitals apart from the OPDs. Considering the load on the present civic hospital at Vashi, the civic body had constructed the three hospitals at Airoli, Nerul and Belapur.
Awaiting staff
The 100-bed hospitals at Nerul and Airoli and 50-bed hospital at Belapur are still awaiting staff and doctors to commence operations. When asked about the delay, Deepak Paropkari, Chief Medical Officer at NMMC said, “We are currently in the process of hiring qualified people for the posts.
It will take time, as about 700-750 staff will be required to run these three hospitals. Hence a fixed date for making these hospitals fully operational has not been decided yet. However, the OPD services have been available from the time of inauguration. We will start operations in these new hospitals at the earliest.”
The estimated cost for the construction of the three hospitals is Rs 165 crore. Currently, the corporation also has three fully operational hospitals at Vashi, Koparkhairne and Turbhe. Of these, Vashi has the largest bed capacity of 300, while the other two have a capacity of 25 beds each.
In September last year, NMMC had also inaugurated two hospitals on wheels known as Floating Advance Casualty Complex (FACC) mobile ambulances to provide on-board treatment to road accidents’ victims across the city.
However, the ambulances meant for this initiative have been gathering dust at Sterling Wockhardt hospital in Vashi. The civic body had spent over Rs 64 lakh on these vehicles.
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