Real-time info of beds at trust-run hospitals
MUMBAI: The collaboration between the civic body’s public health department and the state charity commissioner will now ensure that over 1,500 beds at the 74 trust-run hospitals in the city are better utilised by patients from the economically-weaker sections. Along with the electronic screens displaying realtime status at public hospitals on the availability of beds in trustrun hospitals, the initiative will offer patients a free ambulance service and an officer on special duty (OSD) waiting for their assistance at the destination hospital.
“We have installed screens at five tertiary care hospitals (JJ hospital, Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital, BYL Nair Hospital, KEM Hospital and Cooper Hospital) where the real-time data of bed availability at all the trust run hospitals is visible 24/7. The initiative will ensure that more patients are able to exercise their rights freely,” said state charity commissioner Shivkumar Dige.
Hospitals get tax exemptions and other concessions from the state if they are run by charitable trusts. However, it has been repeatedly found that hospitals often fail to fill their quota of beds.
Izdes Kundan, additional municipal commissioner
(health), said that in a recent meeting with Dige, it has been decided that an OSD will be appointed at all the 74 hospitals. The OSDS will be entrusted with the responsibility of coordinating the transfer of the patients and to ensure that patients avail treatment without any documental hassle. Free ambulance service will also be provided to those patients who will be transferred from the civic hospitals to the trust-run hospitals.
“Since our tertiary care facilities are treating patients at their maximum capacity, we thought a joint initiative with the charity commissioner will ensure that patients are moved to a tertiary care medical facility in case the civic hospitals don’t have beds available,” said Kundan. MUMBAI: The Mumbai Port Trust (MBPT) is working on a plan to decongest the Pd’mello road in Fort, so that visitors get a hasslefree access to the proposed waterfront at Princess Dock, Mazagaon. The plan includes a 150-metre-long road, connecting Pd’mello road to the Ganesh temple below the Eastern Freeway. The new road will provide access to vehicles coming from the southern side to the waterfront. The parking space for around 500 vehicles will also be created near the Mallet Bunder junction.
The waterfront will have a ropax terminal, marina, a skating rink and amphitheatre. A senior MBPT official said they will provide three separate entries to the ropax terminal, the marina and the domestic cruise terminal for vehicles coming from the northern side via the Mazagaon exit on the freeway. “The plan will be executed in five months. We are in talks with the traffic police also,” the official said.
MBPT also plans to create a no-parking zone from the Orange gate to the Nawab tank old bridge to decongest the four-lane road connecting Fort to Dockyard. It will restrict cargo entry along the link road below the Eastern Freeway.