Mumbai, September 15, 2026: In a move aimed at strengthening accountability and improving the functioning of civic hospitals, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will introduce a peer-review system under which deans of one municipal hospital will visit another civic hospital, assess its functioning, identify shortcomings and suggest corrective measures.
Prajakta Verma Lavangare, Additional Municipal Commissioner (City), who also holds charge of the health department, said the system would involve senior medical administrators reviewing the functioning of their “sister” hospitals. For instance, the dean of Sion Hospital could visit KEM Hospital and review its functioning.
“Peer review is always a part of national and international studies and exchanges. I am introducing that,” Verma Lavangare said, adding that the mechanism would allow one medical administrator to point out shortcomings to another at a peer level.
Attendance Concerns At Hospitals
The proposed system comes amid concerns over attendance and availability of doctors and other medical staff at civic hospitals.
Verma Lavangare said deans had been told that doctors should not only be available at hospitals but should also be seen performing their assigned duties. While she said most doctors were attending their duties on time, she acknowledged that some cases required intervention.
The civic administration will follow due procedure, including inquiries and disciplinary action, wherever violations related to attendance or duty are established, she said.
Activist Seeks Standard Checklist
However, health activist Chetan Kothari said the peer-review mechanism should not become a routine exercise in which visiting teams overlook shortcomings at the hospital being inspected.
He suggested that the BMC prepare a standard checklist covering key parameters and make it mandatory for visiting deans to submit detailed reports identifying deficiencies and recommending corrective measures.
“Peer review should not be friendly only but also result-oriented,” Kothari said.
Monitoring Outsourced Services
The BMC has also formally involved assistant municipal commissioners in health-related field visits. They will monitor primary healthcare facilities as well as outsourced and public-private partnership services in their respective wards.
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Verma Lavangare said the civic administration was also working towards introducing performance-based monitoring of several outsourced services through a Quality-and-Cost-Based Selection (QCBS) mechanism, with service-level indicators to assess the performance of private operators.
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