BMC to shut down PPP-run Saboo Siddiqui Hospital

Saboo Siddiqui Hospital in Dongri is set to shut down, come September 14. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Wednesday issued a statement, saying that civic body officials would undertake the process of vacating the premises of the hospital from September 14.

Dna had on May 5 reported “Maternity homes turn into superspecialty hospitals, flout BMC norms” -- a story on BMC's failing public private partnership (PPP) model wherein 32 private players running services on BMC-allotted land owed collective dues of over Rs4.5 crore to the civic body. BMC had entered into PPPs with private players and trusts to run maternity homes, dialysis centres and dispensaries. Balaji Hospital in Byculla, Apex Hospital in Mulund and Saboo Siddique Hospital in Imambada amongst others are running full-fledged superspecialty hospitals in place of maternity homes without BMC's permission.

In 2004, the land in Dongri, originally meant to house Imambada Maternity Home, was provided by the BMC to Muslim Ambulance Society under a PPP for a period of ten years. While the society was asked to run a maternity home on the land, the set-up has been operating as a full-fledged superspecialty hospital, replete with relatively more profitable services like cardiac, orthopaedic, ENT, neurology and imaging diagnostic services like CT Scan and MRI.

In 2013, BMC officials had discovered that another hospital in question, Imambada Maternity Home, run by Muslim Ambulance Society, had changed its nomenclature to MH Saboo Siddique Maternity and General Hospital.

From 2006 to date, BMC has served five notices on the Muslim Ambulance Society over multiple violations of the agreement signed between the two parties. The BMC in its notices has 'requested' the Society to hand over possession of the premises, but in vain. The ten-year PPP contract between BMC and the society ended on February 2014. “The contract will not be renewed. BMC is stopping outpatient and inpatient services of the hospital from September 10 onwards and the process of takeover will be completed by September 14,” read the BMC statement.