KEM Hospital orders structural audit of 96-year-old nurses’ hostel

Mumbai Almost two months after a part of the ceiling plaster fell on a kitchen staffer at the nurses’ quarters and nursing building of Seth GS Medical College and the affiliated KEM Hospital, the authorities have ordered for a structural audit of the building

Mumbai Almost two months after a part of the ceiling plaster fell on a kitchen staffer at the nurses’ quarters and nursing building of Seth GS Medical College and the affiliated KEM Hospital, the authorities have ordered for a structural audit of the building.

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The rooms which were deemed too dangerous have been locked. However, majority of the 300 students are still living in the same building.

“The previous structural audit of the said building was done in 2018, when it was categorised as A1, which meant it was safe to occupy at the time. Since the students living there don’t feel safe anymore, we have ordered a fresh structural audit,” said dean Dr Sangeeta Raval.

The hostel building consists of four floors, two of which have been left unoccupied since the slab fell on a kitchen attendant on November 4. Students are living on the ground and first floors of the hostel, with four to five students occupying the same room. College authorities have put netting on the floors where parts of the walls are falling off, and some local repairs have also been carried out to ensure no untoward incident takes place while the students are living here.

According to Advocate Rachana Agrawal, chairman of NGO Swarakshini Mahila Hitwardhak Sanstha that has taken up the issue, one of the hostels called Anchorage was earmarked for nursing students, but was allotted to some resident doctors by the then dean Dr Sanjay Oak six years ago.

“We had requested the hospital authorities to give back that hostel to nursing students, or accommodate them in the vacant rooms there. They said that the doctors would continue to live there,” she said.

Meanwhile, Dr Raval said that while a few of the students from nursing faculty have been accommodated in on-campus facilities, others have been given the option to move to the premises at TB Hospital in Sewree. This, she said, is the only feasible option for now.

However, the option was not received well by the student and their parents. They feared that the students would contract tuberculosis if they were to accept this offer. The dean, however, said that several others, including resident doctors from Sion Hospital and KEM Hospital, were staying in the same premises.

“We are mindful of protecting the students from the disease. The building where we are asking them to move only has an administrative block on the ground floor. They will be safe there,” she said.