M.T. Agarwal Hospital In A Web!  Civil Hospital’s Ambulance being Misused as Pvt Vehicle!  

Mulund’s biggest BMC hospital, M.T. Agrawal, is always in news for the wrong reasons, be it the negligence of the doctors or the lack of basic facilities in the hospital, or the kith and kin annoyed at the pathetic treatment of their patients by the hospital staff. And now, the civil hospital is again making headlines for misusing the hospital ambulance as a private vehicle!! Patients are complaining that the staff is misusing the ambulance for transporting the junk from the old hospital to the BMC godown while denying the ambulance service to the patients who are the just beneficiaries of this service.

It may be noted that M.T. Agrawal Hospital is run by the nation’s richest civic body and is the biggest hospital in the eastern suburbs. Besides Mulund, underprivileged patients from as far as Vikhroli and Thane come to this hospital to get treatment. Hence, M.T. Agrawal Hospital is the lifeline of the poor and needy. But, the tragedy is that the hospital’s building is under renovation, hence many patients have been shifted to Mumbai hospitals like Rajawadi, KEM or Sion Hospital.

Nevertheless, the hospital is open for the citizens at a different premises. But, regrettably, the make-shift hospital lacks many basic facilities and one among them is the ambulance service. For an emergency service an ambulance is most important, and every big hospital must ideally have minimum 4 to 5 ambulances. Regrettably, the hospital has just one ambulance!! What is awful is that the sole ambulance, instead of being used to serve the patients, is being denied to them and unscrupulously being used for transportation of the hospital’s junk!!!

Irked at the gross abuse of the ambulance, an angry Mulund resident said “It is, indeed, shameful. An ambulance must always be present in an hospital because any patient can require the ambulance during emergency for urgent transportation to the bigger civil hospitals like Sion or KEM.” He alleged, “Despite being aware of the significance of the ambulance, the staff is misusing not just the only ambulance but even the only hearse for transportation of junk and other scrap material of the old hospital. Since the past 15 days, the hospital staff is involved in this unscrupulous work.”

According to eyewitnesses, both the ambulance and hearse make around 4 trips daily from the old hospital to an empty BMC godown located behind Syndicate Bank in Mulund West. A patient from the hospital said, “If any patient requires the ambulance in between the trips, then he is bluntly denied services of the ambulance. Thus, the patents are questioning: Is the ambulance for public service or it has become a private tempo to carry materials?”

Home Times asks:  Will the BMC T-Ward take the public woe seriously and stop this unscrupulous work at the earliest??

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