Teen loses a lung to BMC red tape

Barely 16, Mohammed Nadeem will have to forego one of his lungs, thanks to Sewri TB Hospital which allowed the infection to ravage the young boy's vital organ over a period of one year that he has been there. If the hospital had operated upon him at the right time, his lung could have been saved. But the hospital, despite being Asia's largest in tuberculosis treatment, didn't do so. Instead, three months after Nadeem's admission in May 2015, it suspended surgeries, citing unavailability of doctors at its post-operative care.

However, only recently the hospital appointed a full-time cardiothoracic surgeon. Following this appointment, surgeries resumed at the facility in true sense on April 22, after a gap of almost eight months. Eight to ten major surgeries have now been lined up for the next two months.

"We had senior doctors like Dr H Bhanushali (82) and Dr Sushil Shirodkar (80), who were ready to come to the hospital to conduct surgeries. However, there was no one to take care of the patients after the surgery. The absence of a full-time surgeon at junior level compelled the hospital to stop even emergency surgeries," said a doctor from the hospital.

In 2012, the hospital appointed retired Dr Avinash Kulkarni as doctor on special duty, who continued till August 2015 when the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) decided to remove all officers on special duty. During the same time, contracts of three bonded doctors – two for surgical ward and one for anaesthesia department – also ended. Thereafter, no fresh appointments were made as the hospital's request for the same got stuck in BMC red tape. Since Nadeem's financial condition doesn't allow him to go for private treatment, he had no option but to wait there at the Sewri facility, the only public hospital in Mumbai equipped to conduct TB surgeries.

A doctor treating Nadeem said, when in September it was advised that he had to undergo surgery, the hospital had already locked up the operation theatre (OT). "If he had gone under the scalpel then, we would have just removed the part of pleural – a thin sheet of tissue that covers the outside of the lungs and lines the inside of the chest cavity. Now when we assessed his condition for the surgery, we found that because of the delay, we have to remove his right lung completely," said the doctor.

On Friday, Nadeem was happy that finally his wait was over after doctors shifted him to Ward 3, next to the OT. "I was in 9th standard when I had to come here. I would have taken SSC exam this year, but for the tuberculosis," said Nadeem.

According to doctors, Nadeem's surgery will be done next week.

Confirming that surgeries have started, medical superintendent Dr Jagdish Keny said, "We did not have doctors. We just recruited a cardiothoracic surgeon. Today, I also made a fresh request to the BMC for two full-time surgeons, five anaesthetists and three chest physicians."