Based on a poor performance gauged between April 2023 to January 2024, the BMC's public health department has been ranked at the dismal 19th spot in terms of providing quality health services. Following evaluation on key parameters like newborn and maternal care, the state health department positioned India's richest civic body even below the Ulhasnagar municipal corporation. However, the BMC officials cried foul, arguing that the ranking was based on old data. The civic body was content that it received full marks in immunisation and dengue drives.
Meanwhile, the Pune municipal corporation was ranked first, followed by Kolhapur, Sangli, Nagpur and Navi Mumbai civic bodies. Their counterparts in Vasai-Virar, Dhule, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Parbhani and Jalgaon fared poorly. They were evaluated on their performance of various health programmes for maternal health, child health, family planning and welfare, and adolescent health.
“The BMC's health department could only manage to get 108.75 marks out of 400. Since April 2023, it has been ranked between 22nd to 25th positions. It has performed below average despite having adequate budget, manpower and infrastructure,” said a senior health officer on the condition of anonymity. According to the official data, the civic body has failed to improve quality of care during delivery and post-partum period in the past year, resulting in maternal and newborn mortality. It scored zeroes for national programmes like control of blindness, healthcare of elderly, mental health and tobacco control.
Downplaying the contemptible ranking, a senior BMC official from the health department said, “We have seen the rankings but it is not correct as lots of data has not been updated at the portal despite providing the statistics to the state health department. Also, there are many private hospitals in the BMC's jurisdiction as compared to other districts. If all data had been updated on the portal then we would have come in top 10.”
The civic bodies were also evaluated on how effectively they steered national programmes like leprosy eradication, tuberculosis elimination, vector-borne disease control, urban health mission and Ayushman Bharat were evaluated for ranking. Also, finance management and record maintenance of the reproductive and child health portal were considered. Notably, the state health department has instructed the civic bodies to improve ways of implementing the health programmes as most of them have performed unsatisfactorily. More attention should be given to maternal and child health, family planning and tuberculosis prevention, said an official.
BMC's poor healthcare show
- Ranked 15 in April 2023
- Hovered between 25th and 26th spots in June, July, October
- Got 3.3 out of 8 points in terms of maternal health
- Rated zero for child and adolescent health, ASHA programme
- Scored a mere 0.56 out of 3 points for family planning
