Mumbai: Eighteen months after the BMC-run KEM Hospital in Parel recruited six healthcare MBA graduates to streamline the running of its emergency medical services, the cadre has been discontinued.
In all, eight MBAs joined KEM Hospital in the first half of 2023 on a six-month contract that could be extended. Called ‘service managers’, their task included coordinating between patients and doctors in the emergency services, directing patients needing diagnostic tests to the appropriate departments, reducing crowding, and even hand-holding grieving families, among others.
In their 18-month service, the managers worked in shifts and drew up ways to reduce crowding at the registration counters, as well as a system in which wheelchairs and stretchers should be rotated between EMS and various departments.
Considering that public hospitals are overcrowded and have limited infrastructure, there have been flare-ups between patients and relatives. It was to curb such incidents that KEM Hospital dean Dr Sangeeta Ravat started the service manager scheme.
However, in the first week of June, the managers were told that their contract wouldn’t be renewed at the end of the month. Two of the service managers had already left for jobs in the Gulf, while six were terminated.
The reasons for discontinuing the service managers include a lack of funds on the hospital’s part and insistence by the managers for permanent posts.
When asked, Dr Ravat said that the service managers had wanted a permanent job profile. Such changes can only be brought about by senior civic administration and not at the hospital level.
Incidentally, the salary for the service managers was not sanctioned under the BMC health budget and had to be raised at the hospital level. A senior doctor said this meant that funds for other needs would often get reduced.
When contacted, BMC AMC Abhijit Bangar said the BMC would first reevaluate if the MBAs were really useful in the EMS. “If their role is crucial, the post will be reintroduced with funding from the BMC health budget,” he said.
