BMC increases spending capacity of civic-run hospitals

Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has increased the spending capacity of the heads of civic-run hospitals to ₹25 lakh for non-Covid ailments and separately, ₹50 lakh for Covid-treatment, which involves purchase of medicines and other material. The decision was taken at a meeting held by the civic body’s central purchasing department conducted last week with hospital deans, medical superintendents and heads of the departments The current spending capacity for civic hospitals is ₹3 lakh at a time. The decision was taken at a meeting held by the civic body’s central purchasing department conducted last week with hospital deans, medical superintendents and heads of the departments in attendance and held at the Parel-based civic-run KEM Hospital. In addition to increasing the financial purchase budget from ₹3 lakh to ₹25 lakh for regular medicines and ₹50 lakh for Covid-19 treatment-related purchases at a time, we have also reduced the vendor deposit amount so that when the deans/medical superintendents put out the tenders, they get more vendor participation,” Biradar added. Earlier this year, KEM hospital faced a shortage of medicines including tetanus injections, as well as dressing material like gloves etc., LTMG Sion hospital — one of the four major civic-run hospitals — has been facing an acute shortage of antibiotics and intravenous fluids for the last two months.