Sitting on crucial data, BMC wasting opportunity to improve citizen health?

There is no centralised data or record of the number of patients at civic dispensaries The BMC in response to a RTI query filed by this correspondent asked the applicant to visit individual ward offices to get the data This despite the civic body having an advanced information technology department and spending crores to get necessary equipment The data if available would also prove to be a key to holistic citywide planning analysis cure and preventionThe response to the Right to Information query wherein midday sought data on asthma lungrelated or respiratory illness patients treated in civic dispensaries further revealed that the data is scattered at wardlevelSpeaking on this a civic official said ldquoCase paper system is prevalent here and it is not possible to keep data of illnesses Major trending diseases like monsoonrelated or notified ones such as TB and diabetes are earmarked but not all of themrdquo The civic body also has indicative centralised data on births and deaths BMC Executive Health officer Dr Mangala Gomare did not respond to calls and messagesThe Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has spent crores of rupees on upgrading its IT infra and also started its ambitious health card project which is aimed at centralising patient data from across the city but there has been no change on the groundAs per latest statistics BMC has spent more than Rs 400 crore of public money on IT infrastructure upgrade with an additional provision of Rs 7876 crore for this financial yearFormer officials sayFormer director of Maharashtra Health Services Dr Subhash Salunkhe expressed surprise and said ldquoData plays a very important role in health system planning The BMC has done a good job during the pandemic in data collection and storage I donrsquot know why they donrsquot keep centralised data of regular patients which can help them with elaborate planningrdquoDr Sanjiv Kamble another former director of Maharashtra Health Services said ldquoData is useless if not centralised I canrsquot comment about BMC but with the data in hand anyone can make an immediate citywide action plan If there is a rise in a certain category of illnesses in certain wards the trends are quickly visible and immediate preventive action could be initiated If the data is available it can be analysed daily weekly or onneed basis to make an action planrdquoViews of NGOs activistA recent study by two citybased nonprofits Mumbai First and Praja Foundation stressed on the issue and stated in its latest report titled lsquoIdeal Mumbai Public Health Manifestorsquo that a realtime data system for the cause of deaths and prevalent diseases in the city is much requiredThe report added that the BMC has a statistics team that must be given the job to regularly upload relevant data on the top 10 causes of death and primary healthcare facilities so that it can provide information to citizensldquoDuplication of data through various agencies within the BMC such as TB cell EPID cell ward wise Medical Officer of Health etc needs to be streamlined to ensure that uniform data for a particular disease is made available across agencies Additionally with the help of data the local government can track the status of health according to these targets and ensure corrective interventions are carried outrdquo the report addedDr Neville A Mehta CEO of Mumbai First who was instrumental in making the report said ldquoThe BMC doesnrsquot keep centralised data Data can be used for planning purposes If BMC has centralised data they can understand the trend of illness of each ward and make plans accordinglyrdquoldquoThis is a serious matter and the BMC is irresponsible for giving such an answer to an RTI queryrdquo said RTI activist Anil Galgali adding ldquoThis is like avoiding information They want applicants to visit 24 wards and get the information BMC is the biggest and richest corporation in the country but they are indirectly claiming they donrsquot have centralised data This is unbelievablerdquo