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Civic-run Kurla Bhabha hospital downs shutters

While the two-storey building of Khan Bahadur Hormasji Kharshedji Bhabha Hospital is 23 years old, the adjacent seven-storey building is 25 years old.

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The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation-run Kurla Bhabha Hospital downed shutters on Friday. The 325-bed hospital has been in a dilapidated state for nearly three years now. As per the report of a recent structural audit carried out by the BMC, the hospital building is in an extremely dangerous condition and will have to be vacated immediately. For over a year now, the hospital has not been admitting more than hundred patients. 

While the two-storey building of Khan Bahadur Hormasji Kharshedji Bhabha Hospital is 23 years old, the adjacent seven-storey building is 25 years old. “We have received a notification from the health infrastructure cell after the structural audit report was formulated, indicating that the pillar between the wings of the two buildings is in a weak condition,” said Dr Vidya Thakur, in charge, BMC peripheral hospitals (east zone). 

With no concrete plan as to where to relocate the facility, the BMC is at its wits’ end trying to find a solution to the problem. The civic body was pinning its hopes on an alternate hospital facility comprising 350 beds being set up with the Slum Rehabilitation Authority's assistance in Kurla West, from where it had planned to operate temporarily, till the current building was declared fit for occupation. But doctors have said that the alternate facility is not fully equipped with hospital infrastructure to support the patients and hence patients will not be shifted there. No patients are being admitted to the hospital since Friday.

Asked about the delay in repairs to the seven-storey building, a BMC official explained that it wasn’t possible to carry out repairs of the building while keeping the hospital operational. 

“Firstly, repairs of the building would have led to a lot of flying dust against which microbiologists had warned us. It would have adversely affected the patients,” the official said. “Secondly, the building was constructed in stages. The central portion of the building bears the load of the other two wings. So, undertaking repairs on any one of the wings could have affected the entire building.”

Additional municipal commissioner (health), Sanjay Deshmukh, said, “We are exploring possible options where the hospital could be shifted temporarily. The building will not be taken down as is being speculated. The worn out areas of the structure will be repaired and renovated.”

Local corporator Anuradha Pednekar said there was no inter-departmental coordination within the BMC, which is the reason behind the delay in repairs. “Locals are going to hugely suffer if the hospital is shut. We will meet the municipal commissioner to talk about the possible solutions to this problem,” she said.

 

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