There is a discrepancy in the number of tuberculosis deaths reported by BMC's health department and the cause of death figures obtained under the Right to Information (RTI) Act from the state office of deputy chief registrar's office of birth and death.
In 2013, the BMC's TB control unit reported 1,393 deaths. In the meanwhile, the number of TB deaths reported from death certificates issued by BMC, was over five times higher with 7,127 deaths. In the last four years, 30,722 deaths due to TB have occurred according to the cause of death data, but the BMC public health department had reported that in all, only 5,213 patients died due to TB.
TB has been made a notifiable disease by the BMC. This means that all the private doctors are supposed to notify the BMC of detected cases on treatment and deaths. "That the BMC's public health department chooses to report lesser numbers, goes to say a lot about how the mandatory notification system of BMC is not functioning in an up to date manner. Neither are they choosing to accept or report deaths according to cause of death data, which means they are watering down the intensity of a crucial public health issue by underreporting data," alleged Nitai Mehta, founder trustee, Praja Foundation.
A similar situation arose while counting deaths due to Malaria. BMC claimed that only 30 deaths had occurred last year, while the data obtained under RTI stated that 199 deaths had occurred. The BMC justifies that they take into account the deaths that occur in civic public hospitals only and therefore the numbers differ. Milind Mhaske, project director at Praja Foundation retorts, "Only 30% of the city's population seeks treatment in public hospitals. The BMC leaves out a huge chunk of data while meting out figures which lead to discrepancies in BMC's health department and cause of death data obtained under RTI."
"Even as the registration of birth and death data is provided by the state government and should ideally be adopted as the source of demographic data for socio-economic planning, development of health systems and population control, the civic body is looking the other way," said Milind Mhaske.
Praja has recommended that the public health surveillance system needs to be augmented to regularly collect data from private and charitable health facilities and that such data should be available for research on an open e-platform for public access.
TB deaths reported by BMC health department in 2013 – 1393
TB deaths counted according to cause of death certification in 2013 – 7127
Actual cases five times higher than what BMC reported
Malaria deaths reported by BMC health department in 2013 - 30
Malaria deaths counted according to cause of death certification in 2013 – 199
Actual cases over six times higher than what BMC reported
Since the last six years, 46,606 people died due to Tuberculosis
One in every six TB patients in Mumbai die
Cases of dengue has gone up ten times in 6 years
Death due to dengue have gone up by 4.5 times in the past six years
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