Mumbai: One year after its roll-out, the Health Management Information System (HMIS), one of the poster projects of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has proved a non-starter. The computers are gathering dust and the names of patients and medicines are yet to be entered in the database, according to the Samajwadi Party corporator Rais Shaikh. He undertook a tour of civic hospitals designated for the HMIS project, before making this claim in the House meeting of the BMC on Monday.
The Free Press Journal had, on Sunday, published a detailed report on this pet project of Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta being in limbo. “Not a single entry has been listed under the HMIS scheme till date. Of the 950 computers allocated for the project, 850 are not yet operational. It has been more than a year since the scheme was been rolled out. Where is all the money going?” questioned Shaikh.
Shaikh compared the HMIS facilities in civic hospitals to the one in Sir Jamshedjee Jeejeeboy hospital (JJ hospital), where the scheme is in use. The JJ hospital comes under the state government’s jurisdiction. “Despite having a smaller budget and fewer facilities, JJ hospital has not only started the programme but is also running it efficiently,” he claimed.
Kasturba (Chinchpokli), Nair (Mumbai Central), Ambedkar (Byculla), Cooper (Juhu) and Rajawadi (Ghatkopar) hospitals and five dispensaries around Nair hospital have been designated under the HMIS scheme. The BMC had allocated Rs 68.42 crore for the scheme in 2018-19 and Rs 206.25 crore in its current budget.
