Mumbai: Ravindra Salve, 55, had been working at Mumbai’s Prince Aly Khan Hospital (PAKH) for 35 years and had just four years left for his retirement. His plans, however, went for a toss when the city’s civic body declared the building dilapidated after an audit in August and the hospital management shut operations. The management now wants to demolish the structure.
“My whole world has come crumbling down. We have seen good and bad times in this hospital. Even during Covid, we never turned down patients. At one point, my colleagues and I were also cooking food for patients,” he told ThePrint.
“And now they want to kick us out. We gave our life and blood to this hospital and this is how we get repaid,” said Salve, who was working in the hospital’s health and check-up department.
Managed by Aga Khan Health Services, the healthcare agency of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), Prince Aly Khan Hospital was built in 1945 as a small 16-bed hospital. Over the years, it expanded to 154 beds and became a major landmark in south Mumbai’s Mazgaon area.
Salve and many others who have been suddenly rendered jobless by its closure are not just unhappy, but angry. They allege that the condition of the building is not as bad as it is being made out to be and that the management shut down operations for its own benefit, with a residential township project slated to come up in the area.
Since the hospital’s closure, 950 families of staff members have been camped at the premises in protest.
The mood inside is sombre. The staff are no longer rushing down corridors or tending to patients, but are instead discussing their bleak future over tea and biscuits. The nurses sit quietly in one corner, their hopes vested in the labour unions working to challenge the management’s decision.
They are also awaiting a structural report that the Bombay High Court had on 3 October asked experts from the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) to give within two weeks. Until then, the staff have refused to vacate the hospital.
The management, meanwhile, has contended that its actions were dictated by necessity.
“It is wrong to say that I planned the entire episode,” PAKH chairman Amin Manekia told ThePrint.
He claimed the management was “equally shocked” at the audit results and had decided to shut operations “with a heavy heart” for safety reasons.
“This is not the end. Our plan is to shift the hospital at a different location in the same area. But this will take at least five years to materialise,” Manekia said, adding that the management was in dialogue with the unions and was still paying staff salaries despite the shutdown.
Also read: Plots in Mumbai’s BKC to fetch MMRDA over Rs 2,000 crore after state clears GST hurdle
‘We smell a rat here’
After the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) first audit on 19 August, the management got a second audit done by the civic body, but the results were the same.
On 28 August, the hospital’s management moved the Bombay High Court seeking the building’s demolition as the hospital staff had continued to admit patients and to carry out day-to-day operations despite repeated warnings.
After this, the PAKH labour union filed an application in the court asking for a third structural audit as they did not trust the first two. This time they wanted a private firm of their choice to conduct the audit.
“We smell a rat here. The hospital was renovated only a year ago with the management spending crores on it. How come the building suddenly turned dilapidated? Why didn’t they get an audit done at that time?” asked Kiran Londe, the general secretary of the PAKH union.
According to him, the reason for the hospital’s shutdown is the Aga Hall Estate, a residential township project, complete with gardens and a school, announced earlier this year. “The Aga Hall Estate now progresses to a transformation of an exponential order under the patronage of its owner, Prince Aly Khan Hospital Charitable Trust,” the project’s website says.
“The management wants to pull down the building and make way for a school, as that fits into their residential township project,” Londe alleged. “Who would want a hospital in residential premises? No one would buy their expensive flats if there are ambulance sirens ringing the whole day.”
He alleged that the management has not been forthcoming with the hospital staff.
“What is the management hiding? We have asked for several meetings with the chairman, but he refuses to talk. They cannot just close down by serving a notice. We won’t let it happen,” he said.
Union members told ThePrint that they are happy to follow safety procedures. They claim that they have asked the management to vacate the ICU and shift outpatient services, but have requested that other facilities, including pathology labs and MRI centres, remain functional.
“This hospital is a home to not only the staff or workers but also to the management. I just want to know — what has the management done to save their home?” said Suhas Pathare, who looked after the admissions in the hospital.
Like other workers, he believes that the management’s decision to ask the court’s permission to demolish the structure indicated that something was awry. “This was their plan the whole while,” he claimed.
On 3 October, the Bombay High Court ordered a third structural audit report of Prince Aly Khan Hospital from experts from IIT-B or Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI) to ascertain whether the structure is in a dilapidated condition and needs to be demolished. But the workers insisted on a report by IIT-B. Now the court has asked the IIT team to submit their survey report in a sealed envelope without giving any access to either of the parties.
‘Did everything to save hospital’
PAKH chairman Amin Manekia said he did everything in his power to “save” the hospital.
“I also have an emotional attachment to this hospital as I was born here. I did everything I could to save it. Last year, I spent at least Rs 28 crore in revamping various departments and getting new machines. If I wanted to pull down the hospital intentionally, why would I waste so much money? I could have distributed it among my workers and staff. Then I wouldn’t be even facing these problems or allegations,” Manekia said.
He said the management does not want to compromise the staff’s safety.
“A few years ago, the false ceiling of the oncology clinic situated on the ground floor of the main hospital building collapsed… Thankfully no one was hurt. We got it repaired and work continued. What if it happens again? We cannot take such risks any more. That is why we got the audit done,” Manekia said.
He added that no one had raised an objection about the upcoming residential complex though the plans had been in the works for many years.
“Despite the closure of the hospital, we have been paying salaries running up to crores to everyone. But I cannot keep on doing it forever. They should also understand our situation and cooperate,” Manekia said.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
Also read: ‘We want our homes, not politics’, say displaced families of Mumbai’s ‘scam-hit’ Patra Chawl