Cream for hired experts, crumbs for BMC doctors

Robbing Peter to pay Paul seems to be an art perfected by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on the one hand, it is hiring private consultant doctors at an exorbitant cost of Rs 2,00,000 each per month; while, on the other, it is unable to pay the salaries of its own doctors and medical staff employed at the 16 civic peripheral hospitals for the last six months.

The BMC had invited 186 private doctors with six to eight years of experience to teach Diplomate of National Board (DNB) courses to postgraduate medical students at six of its peripheral hospitals, of whom about 20 senior doctors were appointed as medical consultants. Junior and senior consultants are paid Rs 1.50 lakh and Rs 2 lakh per month, respectively.

The policy was supposed to reduce the load on the four tertiary BMC-run hospitals – King Edward Memorial, Dr R N Cooper, B Y L Nair and Sion Hospitals -- so that the students of the three-year specialisation course — could provide treatment at its peripheral hospitals. The BMC had hired specialists for fields such as medicine, surgery, gynaecology, paediatrics, orthopaedics, anaesthesia, radiology and ENT, among others.

The move was expected to reduce the number of critical patients referred from a peripheral hospital to a tertiary care centre for treatment and thereby help patients receive life-saving treatment in time. More than 40 per cent of patients from the BMC’s peripheral hospitals are referred to major civic-run hospitals such as KEM, Cooper, Nair and Sion, for want of specialists at its peripheral hospitals.