The Maharashtra State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) has taken a suo motu cognisance of the sorry plight of the government-owned Bharat Ratna Late Pandit Bhimsen Joshi Civil (Tembha) Hospital in Bhayandar. The SHRC has directed state government and Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) officials to submit a report and also to remain present for a hearing scheduled on 2 March, 2023. The hospital is running without adequate doctors, para medical staff and even sanitation workers. After much dilly-dallying, the state government had taken over the reins of the hospital from the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) in 2018.
The MBMC had expressed before the judiciary about its inability to sustain the huge administrative expenses to run the hospital. Currently, 55 staffers, including doctors and nurses, have been recruited which is half the required manpower needed for the lone 200-bedded hospital here, which also has an Out-Patient Department (OPD), operation theatres and dialysis unit. Although the MBMC has also been summoned, civic officials said that they will place on record documents like the handover agreement executed with the government in 2018. Apart from recruiting medical staffers, the state government is yet to fill the sanctioned posts of 44 sanitation workers.
The MBMC, which earlier managed the hospital, had facilitated 44 sanitation workers. However, the services were discontinued in Oct 2022. Moreover, the existing on-roll and contractual employees never receive their wages on time. As a stopgap arrangement, five sanitation workers have been hired on the virtue of funds approved under the patient welfare by the hospital committee, said a senior official.
