Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has now directed all the deans, medical superintendents of the civic-run hospitals to speed up the process of long-pending surgeries, operations which were hampered due to the ongoing pandemic. Currently, there is a waiting list of 3-4 days for surgeries or operations depending on the availability. Civic officials said more than 60 per cent of pending surgeries and operations have been successfully done and they are giving priority to emergency cases. Doctors said as the cases have come down non-covid activities have started which has increased the workload on all the staff and on a daily basis 20 to 25 planned surgeries are being done.
Dr Shailesh Mohite, Dean, RN Cooper Hospital said they had started all non-covid activities in January as there were fewer covid cases and hardly any admissions were done. Moreover, during the pandemic, the hospital was partially operated as a covid hospital due to which surgeries were postponed and only emergency cases were taken on priority.
“We are now fully functional and all departments have been ordered to operate like in the pre-pandemic era and complete all postponed surgeries and operations to avoid any more waiting period for the patients. We have been doing 28 surgeries and operations on a daily basis and none of the patients is turned away until there are any emergency cases,” he said.
Suresh Kakani, Additional Municipal Commissioner said there were several complaints of non-covid patients being neglected or not being entertained, but it was never such a situation as all patients are equally treated at the civic hospitals considering the covid situation. Over the last two years, covid has impacted the non-covid operations result which many surgeries were postponed and patients had to wait until the pandemic gets over.
“We get patients across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region which means 30-40 per cent are outside patients and during pandemic, many patients have faced problems as non-covid operations were shut at the main civic-run hospitals during the initial days. But as cases started to dip we focused on non-covid activities and conducted emergency surgeries and operations. Now also we have directed all the hospitals to function in full force and clear all the backlogs of surgeries and operations. Moreover, we are strengthening the healthcare facilities in areas that are around Mumbai,” he said.
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