dna impact: Sion hospital told to explain dialysis device malfunction

The civic health committee chairperson Geeta Gawli has taken serious cognisance of the ailing infrastructure at the Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital (Sion Hospital) and demanded an explanation from the authorities. “I have asked the dean of the hospital to give me detailed information about the non-functioning of the machines. I will take appropriate action after that. This is a serious issue,’’ said Gawli.

On, September 13, dna had carried an exclusive report revealing how four of the five dialysis machines at the Artificial Kidney Dialysis (AKD) department of the hospital weren’t functional for over a month. This was causing patients to opt for dialysis at expensive private centres. 

Manisha Mhaiskar, additional municipal commissioner in charge of health said corrective steps are being taken and that the machines should be functional “soon”. She said the machines hadn’t been working “only for two weeks” and that dialysis units were fully functional at others centres like Rajawadi, Magathane (Borivli) and Saibaba Nagar (Borivli). “We have three centres so we will be referring all patients to these places until the problems with the machines at Sion Hospital is rectified,” she said.

The department on first floor of casualty department in ward 35 is always swarming with patients because of the huge demand for dialysis and Sion Hospital should ideally have over 10 dialysis machines to cater to the demand.