BMC to discontinue outsourcing doctors for its peripheral ICUs

Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to stop outsourcing manpower for the intensive care units (ICUs) of its 16 peripheral hospitals. The decision comes four months after an FIR was registered against trustees of Jeevan Jyot Charitable Trust for allegedly recruiting unqualified and bogus doctors.

The trust is one of the agencies that the civic body hired in 2018 and was providing manpower for ICUs in three of its peripheral hospitals, including MT Agarwal Hospital, Mulund.

After the FIR against the trust was registered, police investigation revealed that the trust had hired a Bachelor of Homoeopathic Medicine and Surgery (BHMS) graduate to man the MT Agarwal Hospital ICU, which is a BMC set-up. During his service at the hospital, the BHMS doctor had issued 32 death certificates using the name and Maharashtra Medical Council registration number of another doctor. So far, the police have arrested more than six people. “In 2018, it was decided to outsource the manpower for the ICUs for the peripheral hospitals as we were struggling to get doctors. Things were going fine. However, during the Covid-19 pandemic, a review of the work of external agencies didn’t take place,” said a senior BMC health official.

BMC had also set up a committee under the chief medical superintendent of peripheral hospitals to review its decision of outsourcing manpower for ICUs. “One of the suggestions is to increase the pay package of hired doctors so that more doctors come forward to work in our hospitals. There was an existing issue of non-payment of salaries to the doctors by the trust. After the FIR on Jeevan Jyot Trust, doctors went on a strike too. We decided to post our doctors in these ICUs,” said the official, who said they have decided to continue posting their doctors at the ICUs. “We are also planning to train them (to handle ICU patients),” said another senior health official.

Explaining the shortage of ICU doctors faced by BMC, a doctor who had earlier worked in BMC, said, “The pay package is ₹80,000-90,000 for MD (Medicine) doctors. The agency pays around ₹1.5 lakh. Unlike BMC, there is flexibility in choosing the duty shifts. There are other regulations too in BMC because of which doctors prefer going to private hospitals than work with BMC.”

While the committee is yet to submit its final report, BMC has dedicated 100 ICU beds in SevenHills Hospitals, Marol, for critically ill patients admitted to its 16 peripheral hospitals. The ICU beds are also equipped with dialysis facilities.

“With the rise in monsoon illness, we decided to utilise the beds at SevenHills Hospital where critical patients from all 16 peripheral hospitals will be treated. This is a temporary solution till we find a permanent one,” said the BMC official.

The BMC health official said 16 patients from peripheral hospitals were transferred in less than 24 hours to SevenHills Hospital. “Most of them have lower respiratory tract infection with thrombocytopenia- deficiency of platelets in the blood,” said the official. Adding that acute respiratory distress syndrome, which is a serious lung condition that causes low blood oxygen, is on the rise because of dengue, leptospirosis, viral pneumonia and other monsoon illness.

“ICUs of peripheral hospitals are not well-equipped to handle them. Also, Mumbai needed 100-200 ICU beds which are now fulfilled at SevenHills Hospital,” said the official.