Maharashtra government promises recruiting extra staff at Nair hospital to avoid mishaps

After the death of a man who was sucked into a MRI machine at the civic-run BYL Nair Hospital, the BMC is considering recruiting extra teaching staff in the department and stationing security guards round the clock to ensure that preventive measures are taken.

In a written reply to a question by Waris Pathan (AIMIM- Byculla) and others, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said a committee under the head of the MRI department had suggested measures which were being considered to prevent such mishaps from recurring in the hospital. This included making available MRI compatible trolleys, wheelchairs, oxygen cylinders and fire extinguishers in departments like MICU, NICU, ICCU and trauma.

Staff like specialist medical officers, resident medical officers, technicians, nurses, ward boys and guards must be present when patients are undergoing MRI screening. A security guard will be stationed across three shifts to prevent relatives of patients from entering the MRI department.

A suggestion has also been made for recruiting an additional associate professor and one assistant professor in the MRI department. Today, the department has just one professor cum head of the department and one assistant professor.

Fadnavis said there was a rule that no metal object should be taken into the MRI department.

A 32-year-old man Rajesh Maru was sucked into an MRI machine and killed on January 27 after he entered the room holding an oxygen cylinder at the Nair Hospital. Maru was holding the cylinder for a relative admitted to the hospital who was supposed to undergo a MRI scan. He was sucked into the machine by its magnetic field and died soon after.