The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has invited tenders for the reconstruction of the civic-run Krantiveer Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Hospital in Vikhroli’s Kannamwar Nagar. The tender to build a 500-bed super-speciality hospital is worth Rs 593 crore.
The BMC shut down the facility, popularly known as the Phule hospital, in 2018 after the building was declared dilapidated. While the civic body had planned to redevelop the hospital into a super-speciality facility along with an increased bed capacity from 100 to 500, the project had been facing persistent delays. mid-day has been reporting on the same.
The old Krantiveer Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Hospital had 100 beds. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi
On Monday, January 15, the civic body’s building maintenance department finally published the tender for the hospital’s reconstruction. According to the BMC document, the hospital building will have 13 floors, with an area of 37,789 square metres. Staff quarters will be in a 21-floor structure spread across 5,782 square metres. The hospital will have 500 beds and the construction is to be completed in three years once the work starts. The estimated cost of the hospital’s construction is Rs 593 crore.
Super-speciality services
According to an official, the new hospital will have cardiac, gastroenterology and other super-speciality services apart from regular medical services. “The construction of the building will take three years,” the official said. According to civic data, nearly eight to nine lakh people in Vikhroli, Kanjurmarg, and Bhandup depend on the Krantiveer Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Hospital.
BMC seeks rented space
To provide an alternative to Phule hospital, the BMC decided a few months ago to rent a private medical facility. It published an expression of interest to rent a private hospital building having the required medical infrastructure and a capacity of 100 to 150 beds. An official told mid-day, “We have invited expressions of interest for three years. The hospital should be located within a 5-km radius of Kannamwar Nagar and have multi-speciality facilities. A minimum of 20 beds for intensive care and a minimum of 10 beds for neonatal intensive care should be available. So far, no response has been received from any private hospital.”
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