Patients in BMC-run hospitals might have to put up with stray cats next to their beds until the end of the election season. After years of delay, BMC's health department was supposed to start sterilizing cats from April 1 to stop them from reproducing in the hospitals. But the work has been halted due to the code of conduct for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

In BMC-run hospitals, cats are often seen sharing their beds with the relatives of the patients or staring at their food. This can be extremely harmful for the patients as an infected cat could spread several kinds of zoonotic disease like toxoplasma, which is also called 'cat parasite'.