858 public dispensaries are needed, but only 199 present

30% STAFF VACANCY IN CIVIC CLINICS

- Sumitra DebRoy

TIMES VIEW: A WHO report published in March 2022 stated that household out-of-pocket (OOP) expenses on health services continue to push over 5.5 crore people in India into poverty annually. A guaranteed solution to reducing OOP expenditure is strengthening primary health systems by providing manpower, medicines and diagnostic services under one roof. BMC is yet to deliver the advanced polyclinics it promised. Given Covid’s disruption, the need for efficient primary health services is immediate.

Mumbai: Despite a near-200% jump in the civic health budget over a decade, a sizeable gap has remained in the city's primary health system. Mumbai is short of 659 public dispensaries and suffers from a 30% staff shortage in 187 existing centres, states NGO Praja Foundation’s white paper on the city’s health status, released on Tuesday.

The report said that as per the National Building Code and Urban Design Plan Formulation and Implementation, there should be one dispensary per 15,000 people. By that parameter, the city should ideally have 858 dispensaries but merely 199 public facilities exist, including 187 in the civic set-up. None of the 24 wards, therefore, meet the population-dispensary ratio. Further, 174 of the 187 BMC dispensaries function for seven hours (9am to 4pm), while just a dozen work for 14 hours (9am to 11pm). Exacerbating the crisis is vacancies, which have grown from 10% to 30% in 2012-2021.