Two years on, maternity home proposed in SK Garden still on paper

Two years after the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike proposed to set up a maternity home at the SK Garden ward, the civic body has made no progress on the work.

The maternity home was planned for Rs 300 lakh, while Rs 150 lakh was earmarked to renovate the maternity home at Thimmaiah Road in Bharathi Nagar ward. The civic body also proposed to set up a referral hospital in Ganesh Mandir ward. Ideally, there should be 58 referral centres for a population of 70 lakh.

The clinical health wing of the civic body said that these proposals were made by elected representatives and that they were left out of the loop, consequently budget for the same was never sanctioned. The city currently has 26 maternity homes and six 30-bedded referral hospitals that handle 12,000 deliveries per month. This totals up to 1.4 lakh deliveries a year.

According to the Indian Public Health Standards, there should be a referral centre for 1.2 lakh population.

In Bengaluru, both the state government and the BBMP are running health facilities. BBMP is providing primary healthcare in 135 wards in the core area. In addition, it is also providing secondary health care through referral hospitals. The state government takes care of public health in the outer zones.

“As per the 2011 census, the population of 135 wards is 55,52,296. Adding 20% population per year would make it approximately 70 lakh population, as per the National Urban Health Mission,” Nirmala Buggi, BBMPs’ chief health officer (clinical health) said.

SK Garden corporator Mohammad Zamir Shah was unaware of the proposals, while Pulkeshinagar MLA Akhanda Srinivas Murthy, under whose Assembly segment the ward falls, was not reachable.

Bharathi Nagar corporator Shakeel Ahmed said: “We’ll get Rs 150 lakh from the BBMP and Shivajinagar MLA Rizwan Arshad will give Rs 1.75 crore from the MLA fund. The tender was delayed due to the byelections but will be finalised within a week. With the available funds, authorities propose to buy baby warmers and install a dialysis unit.

Arshad was not available for comment.

Dr. Nirmala said the plan as of now is to renovate the existing maternity homes and referral hospitals. No new facilities have been proposed.

“These are proposed by elected representatives and not by us. They have not been built due to some technical issues,” she said.

Ganesh Mandir ward corporator Lakshmi and Padmanabhanagar MLA R Ashoka were unavailable for comments, but Dr Nirmala said Rs 4.5-crore worth renovation projects are underway at Banashankari in the same area, though she is not aware of the new constructions.