HC orders inspection of TMC hosp, thanks to citizens’ petition

The APCR first sent a representation to the TMC commissioner, and followed it up with a request for a meeting, which was denied. Three reminders later, when there was still no response, they filed a petition in HC in February 2022

MUMBAI: In an order issued on Wednesday, the Bombay high court (HC) criticised the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) for its “apathy” towards providing healthcare to residents of Mumbra and Kausa. The order by CJ Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Arif S Doctor referenced Article 21 of the Constitution, right to life, which the judges said, “protects every citizen’s right to seek good and affordable healthcare”.

HC orders inspection of TMC hosp, thanks to citizens’ petition

The move is a validation of citizens’ activism, as it comes in response to a petition filed by the Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR), an all-India organisation of lawyers. Three of the petitioners are APCR members and the fourth an RTI activist. As residents of Mumbra and Kausa, they had for long felt the lack of a public hospital, the nearest being 12 km away in Kalwa – a good hour’s drive.

Members of APCR were alerted by a news report in 2021 about a municipal hospital planned in Kausa as far back as 2008. They set out to seek more information, and met RTI activist Hanif Kamdar to join their endeavour. The documents accessed by Kamdar through RTI revealed that the original cost of a 100-bed hospital which had been pegged at ₹10 crore in 2008, had ballooned to ₹54 crore by 2014, ₹128.50 crore in 2018 and ₹139.04 crore by 2021. Also, while the original sanctioned plan visualised a ground-plus-two-storeyed fully equipped hospital, what had come up by the end of 2021 was only a ground-plus-one-storeyed structure, which was still not functional as a hospital.

The APCR first sent a representation to the TMC commissioner, and followed it up with a request for a meeting, which was denied. Three reminders later, when there was still no response, they filed a petition in HC in February 2022.

In its reply to the petition, the civic body admitted that residents of Kausa did not have access to medical facilities, but added that the OPD, gynaecology and administrative departments had started functioning in the new hospital. Subsequently, in a rejoinder, the APCR alleged that all TMC had done was to shift its Mumbra PHC to the hospital.

In its order on Wednesday, the court stated, “there cannot be any justification for such unexplained and inordinate delay in completion of a project concerning healthcare of the public”, and directed a three-member committee comprising a lawyer, a doctor nominated by JJ Hospital and an executive engineer nominated by the PWD to conduct a thorough survey of the structure and send a report by November 8.

The TMC has also been directed to submit what steps it has taken to procure equipment and recruit staff, and how long will it take for the hospital to become fully functional.

Residents of Mumbra and Kausa can now heave a sigh of relief.

“A 100-bed public hospital will benefit not just those living in Mumbra and Kausa, but also the growing population of Diva, as well as villagers living around these townships,” said Advocate Niyaz Ahmed, the first petitioner and president of the Thane unit of the APCR. He added, had the hospital been built on time (the work order issued in 2014 had a 24-month deadline) it would have saved many lives, and proved immensely beneficial during the pandemic.

Referring to the death of 23 patients over four days at the Kalwa Municipal Hospital in August, which led to a government inquiry, Ahmed recalled, “It was obvious then that the Kalwa hospital could not cope with the pressure of numbers from all over Thane district.” Most patients from these neighbourhoods come from lower middle-class backgrounds who cannot afford treatment in private hospitals.