Long delay in generating BU numbers affecting many

Even getting a simple district-identity number has turned into an ordeal

Fifty-three-year-old S Harish Kumar is one of the many who lost their lives while waiting for a BU number. BU stands for Bengaluru Urban, the name of the district. It is said to be generated automatically, once a lab uploads the test report to the Indian Council of Medical Research website.

A severely unwell Harish had to wait 10 days after he got a swab test, and the BU number arrived only after his death on May 3. The swab test on Harish was done at a BBMP maternity hospital in N R Colony, which sat on the report, and did not respond to SOS requests. “We called them multiple times,” says Raghavendra S, his friend and business partner. It took Metrolife scores of attempts to contact the hospital.

“There’s a huge overload of tests and some of our staff have tested positive. We always upload the results on the ICMR website. We will deal with lapses strictly,” the medical officer on duty finally said, but did nothing to collect details about this case.

When Harish developed breathlessness, no help was forthcoming, and hospitals said they were full. Only after a politician stepped in did he find a bed. He was admitted to Prashanth Hospital in Bommanahalli on May 1.

His condition deteriorated and he needed a ventilator. His family and friends spent two days knocking on the doors of at least 25 hospitals. All of them insisted on a BU number.

At one point, the district administration allotted a ventilator bed in Sapthagiri Super Speciality Hospital, BB Road, north Bengaluru but the hospital said it was a mistake and did not admit Harish.

BBMP administrator Rakesh Singh says patients are being admitted in hospitals even if they don’t have the BU number. “The SRF number will do,” he says.

Raghavendra says: “Finally, we got Harish’s BU number on the day of the cremation. Sadly, the number was required to cremate the body as well.” Harish’s family didn’t get the Covid positive report either, but the HRCT scan confirmed he had developed a lung infection. He is survived by his wife and two daughters, both in school.

Dr Giridhara R Babu, professor of epidemiology and member of the Karnataka government’s Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), says, “We should do away with all the procedural barriers and enable people to get admitted and start treatment.”

Dr R Ravindra, medical director of Suguna Hospital and past president of the Private Hospitals and Nursing Homes’ Association (PHANA), says, “Labs only generate an SRF number and upload the results on the ICMR website. It is the BBMP war room’s job to allocate a BU number. We don’t know whether it is severe case overload, or whether those involved in blocking beds messed up the generation of BU numbers,” says Dr Ravindra.

He says that BU is used only to prevent people from moving from one district to another and for the government to make payments. “But the lack of the number should not come in the way of saving a patient’s life,” he adds.

A senior official with the BBMP says, sheer negligence could have led to lapse.

Labs penalised

Chief Commissioner of BBMP Gaurav Gupta says the BU number is automatically generated at the BBMP war room. “In fact, the BBMP has shut down five labs that didn’t upload results and issued notices to 17,” he says. Ironically, the lab that sat on Harish’s test results run by the BBMP.

No response on 102

Metrolife called 102, the helpline dedicated to hospital-related complaints, to explain Harish’s case. This number was announced amid huge fanfare after Tejasvi Surya, Bengaluru South MP, claimed he had busted a hospital bed-booking scam. The phone kept ringing and nobody picked it up.