MUMBAI: A message written in chalk on the notice board at the civic-run VN Desai Hospital in Santacruz (east) on Thursday had made Anees Sayyed, 28, panic. Sayyed, whose day-old son was in the hospital’s NICU, had heard about the notice, which said the 276-bed hospital would shut for three months from October 12.
The hospital, which has been under renovation for years, also said it would shift patients to another facility.
“My son is only a day old and is on a ventilator. “They had already issued transfer orders to their staff. The hospital had decided to move patients to Bhabha Hospital in Bandra (west) and the Jogeshwari’s Trauma Care Hospital, while the OPD facilities were to be shifted to the old Khar dispensary. VN Desai Hospital is the only civic medical facility east of the highway between Jogeshwari and Andheri, catering to areas like Golibar, Bharat Nagar and Datta Mandir. Closure would have hit lakhs of residents here. Renovations have rendered parts of the hospital almost inaccessible, particularly on the ground floor. Heaps of bamboos lie in the quadrangle between the four buildings, while bamboo scaffolding and green construction material clad the inner face of the campus.
Shifting him at this stage could be life-threatening for him,” said the auto-rickshaw driver. A resident of Bharat Nagar at Bandra (east), Sayyed says that VN Desai Hospital is the closest for families like his and shutting it even temporarily would be a blow. And plans to shift services to other hospitals were taken without taking patients or elected representatives into confidence,” said Gitesh Raut, Sena (UBT) corporator from Vakola. Medical superintendent Dr Mayura Nagle told HT, “Following the delegation, the BMC has decided to stay the shifting of this hospital till further orders from the municipal commissioner. No services or patients will be shifted and all services will continue here for now,” Nagle said.
Political intervention forced the hospital to reverse its decision on Friday but uncertainty persists, leaving patients like Sayyed very worried. The hospital’s decision to close temporarily was reversed after legislator from Bandra (east) Varun Sardesai (Shiv Sena-UBT) turned up with six corporators at the hospital on Thursday afternoon, demanding that the hospital withdraw its decision.
