Civic hospitals need to up security on war footing

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A front-page report in this newspaper earlier this week exposed a shocking lapse in security at the Brihanmumbai-run Lokmanya Tilak Memorial General Hospital at Sion. A drunk man, who works at a vada-pav stall nearby, managed to walk into a ward unchallenged and drew blood from a patient using a syringe in his possession.

Providentially, the wife of the patient returned from the washroom at that time and suspected something was wrong. The drunk asked her for Rs 800 to test the 'sample' he had drawn. Not convinced, and smelling alcohol on him, the woman raised an alarm and helped catch the accused.

Though no major damage was done to the patient, the incident shocked the city. There are several ways this could have gone wrong. How could a drunk man walk into the hospital and reach the ward? What if a patient, or even a doctor, was severely assaulted? What if someone had entered a ward full of women and children? What if a baby was stolen? The chilling possibilities are endless. (There have been several instances of babies being stolen and doctors being assaulted.)

That there are thousands of patients at any given time in major civic hospitals, which together have a footfall of close to 1,00,000 people every day, makes it even more worrying.

To be sure, not everything is wrong with these hospitals. They are valuable to a large section of the city that can't afford expensive private hospitals. Some of the best medical minds work overtime, not to mention bright resident doctors, to somehow cater to the overflowing patients. Many a super-specialist takes time off their busy schedules to volunteer here.

But these aspects cannot mask the appalling state of security and administration. The BMC top brass has now ordered a probe into the breach. But this should just be a starting point. All civic hospitals, including the peripheral ones, need to beef up on security round-the-clock.

Currently, the fire chief holds additional charge of BMC's security arm. It boggles the mind that one officer is expected to handle fire safety in a city of several millions while also supervising security in establishments visited by hundreds of thousands. The civic body could start with immediately appointing a senior officer to exclusively handle hospital security.

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