BMC proposes to set up medical college at Govandi on PPP basis

Mumbai's BMC invites EOI for a new medical college at Govandi's Shatabdi Hospital on a PPP basis, amid concerns over privatization and access to care.

MUMBAI: The city could soon have its seventh medical college, as the BMC has invited an expression of interest (EOI) to set up a medical college attached to Govandi’s Shatabdi Hospital on a public-private participation (PPP) basis. This was confirmed by Chandrakant Pawar, chief medical superintendent of the BMC peripheral hospital. “We are waiting for responses to the EOI,” he said.

Aerial view of JJ Hospital and Grant Medical College (HT Photo)

At present, Mumbai has two medical colleges—Grant Medical College and St George Medical College—run by the state government, while the BMC governs the medical colleges attached to Sion, Nair, KEM and Cooper hospitals. The state has also started two medical colleges in Ambernath and Raigad while the Thane municipal corporation has its own medical college. The proposed 100-seat college at Govandi will be the first medical college in the eastern suburbs.

The proposed PPP model has come in for some flak. Suprada Phaterpekar, former corporator from Chembur who is also secretary of the Shiv Sena (UBT) said, “The BMC has a huge budget for medical services. Why should it hand over the medical college to a private entity? We have already opposed the privatisation of Bhagwati Hospital.”

A BJP functionary said that even as the RSS was building medical institutions in the country, the BMC was going all out to privatise its institutions. “We have all opposed the privatisation of Bhagwati Hospital, and we will inform our leaders about the privatisation of Govandi’s Shatabdi Hospital and medical college too,” he said. “Once a hospital is privatised, poor people will not get treatment there.”

A senior officer of the BMC’s medical education cell said that the top bosses of the BMC were in no mood to spend any money on medical facilities. “The civic body has faced a huge financial drain due to the so-called beautification programmes during the tenure of the Eknath Shinde-led government and big infra projects like the Coastal Road and the Mulund-Goregaon tunnel,” he pointed out.

Neelam Andrade, director of the BMC’s medical education cell, clarified that after privatisation, 30% of Shatabdi Hospital’s 581 beds would be for BMC-recommended patients, who would be treated at concessional rates.