Push to strengthen health infrastructure in peripheral hosps

By March 2023, 18 additional polyclinics and diagnostic centers and 131 HBT-Aapla Dawakhanas for which ₹75 crore have been allocated.

New initiative called Arogyam Kutumbam: community based early screening for non-communicable diseases.

Additional dialysis facilities proposed at V N Desai Hospital, Santacruz and Maa Hospital, Chembur.

Cath lab facility in Kurla’s Bhabha Hospital.

Redevelopment of MT Agrawal Hospital, Mulund, Bhagwati Hospital, Borivali, Shatabdi Hospital, Govandi, Siddharth Hospital, Goregaon, Krantiveer Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Hospital in Vikhroli and expansion of Bhabha Hospital in Bandra is underway.

Super specialty projects at Bhandup and Kandivali.

New hospitals about to come up at Vikhroli.

Linear accelerator and PET scan facility at Nair Hospital. A multi-specialty hospital building next to Jakhadevi temple in Dadar.

152 bedded maternity home building at Oshiwara. 12 bedded Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Shivajinagar Maternity Hospital.

Eye hospital at Kamathipura.

49 bedded Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad Maternity Hospital at Malvani is being redeveloped.

MUMBAI: Considering that a majority of Mumbaiites live in the suburbs, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) health budget for the financial year 2023-24, is all about strengthening the health infrastructure in peripheral hospitals. Preventive health care is another focal area and the budget speech repeatedly mentioned screening citizens for non-communicable diseases with the intention of reducing the morbidity and mortality due to diabetes, hypertension, cancer and mental health issues.

The BMC has allotted ₹6,309.38 crore to the various health infrastructure projects that are underway or planned. This is 12% of the total budget, as opposed to 15% of last year’s budget at ₹6,934 crore.

A major chunk of this budget will be used on constructing new hospitals or redeveloping existing ones, especially in the peripheral hospitals located in the suburbs. A pet project of the BMC, Hinduhridaysamrat Balasaheb Thackeray - Aapla Dawakhanas, have been allocated ₹75 crore.

While the health activists have all welcomed the step of

C T Scan and MRI facility through public private partnership project. at Loknete Eknathrao Gaikwad Urban Health Center under Sion hospital at Dharavi.

KEM, Nair and Sion to get advanced CT scan machines and upgraded MRI machines.

Digital Repository & Retrieval System for store department at KEM hospital at the cost of ₹3.25 crore.

creating a better equipped network of peripheral hospitals, they also speak about a few areas in the health sector that could be strengthened. One activist pointed out how there is no budgetary overlay for the secondary and tertiary hospitals.

“Equal focus on secondary and tertiary healthcare would have been a better way to move forward. I see no mega interventions in the tertiary institutions. The union government is asking local governments to focus on health research which also is not a part of BMC’s agenda,” he said.

Vibhuti Patel, managing trustee of Anusandhan Trust said that despite being an essential part of the health initiatives, the ASHA workers and community health workers are a neglected lot.

“All the non-communicable diseases screening activities of the civic body are dependent on them but they don’t even get decent wages,” she said. Appreciative of the mental health screening initiative, she said that the BMC should work on upscaling the Dilaasa model, a psychological support centre for survivors of domestic and genderbased violence, currently only being run at K B Bhabha Hospital, Bandra, using the Nirbhaya fund allocated to the state.