Civic hospitals flag admin delays with staff deployed for SIR work

Hospital administrators said clinical services have continued uninterrupted as doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers have not been assigned SIR duties

Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) deployment of administrative staff from civic hospitals for the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has disrupted administration work in hospitals even as patient care remains unaffected, according to doctors.

Civic hospitals flag admin delays with staff deployed for SIR work

“Hospitals are critical services and highly sensitive. While the immediate health services are not affected, the non-essential services like procurement, tendering and ensuring availability of medicines are delayed leading to inconveniences,” a medical superintendent said on condition of anonymity.

Hospital administrators said clinical services have continued uninterrupted as doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers have not been assigned SIR duties. However, the deployment of administrative staff has increased the workload on the remaining employees and have also delayed several back-end processes.

Another medical superintendent said, “Though only the administrative staffers are being taken up for the SIR and earlier for the Census work, there is no clarity on how long these clerical staffers will be away from hospital duty.”

Doctors said there is also a slowdown in the procurement of essential medical supplies because government purchases require multiple administrative approvals.

Doctors also raised concerns over the delay in their allowances. “Payment of our allowances have been held up for over a month because there is no clerical staff to calculate or oversee the payments. While the patients are not affected, the doctors are personally affected,” a doctor from KEM Hospital in Parel said.

Additional municipal commissioner Prajakta Verma, who oversees the health department, acknowledged the impact but said the deployment was necessary.

She told HT, “This is national duty and we have to do the task. It will just be for a month. We are only taking administrative staffers and not taking clinical staffers.” She also added that the deployment has been done in a manner to ensure that the regular functioning of hospitals remain unaffected.

The Election Commission launched SIR across the state after nearly 24 years to prepare updated and error-free electoral rolls. The civic body has deployed hospital clerical staff for the SIR duty for a month now.