With Rs3.7 crore dole, KEM to improve health of its intensive care for babies

The intensive care unit for newborns at the civic-run KEM Hospital in Parel is set to receive a dole of Rs3.7 crore. This will be a huge boost to the medical facility, generally known as neonatal intensive care unit.
Presently, the municipal hospital has 37 beds for ailing babies who are less than a month old. The number of beds is far too small considering that the facility accommodates about 80 babies on thirty-seven at any given point of time, making the infants susceptible to infection.

A doctor in the hospital's neo-natal intensive care unit said that babies brought to the hospital in a serious condition and in need of immediate ventilator support have to be turned away due to an acute paucity of beds. The funds have been pumped through the municipality's corporate social responsibilty cell to upgrade the health facility. The project of upgrading of facilities in the unit will be implemented over a period of two years with the support of Mazagaon Docks Limited. 

According to a press release issued by the hospital, the funds will significantly help improve infrastructure of "one of the few specialised neonatal care facilities in India" and will also help extend services to a wider section of society. The media release stated taht work to improve civil and mechanical infrastructure as well as upgradation using latest equipment is being carried out. 

A senior doctor at the public hospital, however, told dna that the number of beds is not likely to be increased significantly. "That is so because most of the funds will be utilised for renovation and for equipment," said this doctor.

For a population of 1.2 crore in Mumbai, doctors say, that at least 1,200 neonatal intensive care unit beds have to be made available in order to cater to newborns, as has been mandated by the World Health Organisation. However, all public and private hospitals in the city fall short of this standard requirement as they have a total of 315 beds in neonatal intensive care units.

KEM Hospital, one of the periphery municipal hospitals of Mumbai, sees a daily footfall of more than a thousand patients in the Out-Patient Department. Besides, the hospital has 900 patients admitted at any given point of time.