A sweeper has been caught performing an Electrocardiogram (ECG) at a civic hospital in Mumbai's Chembur area. The incident was reported to the Maharashtra State Human Rights Commission (MSHRC), after which the rights panel body imposed a Rs 12 lakh fine on BMC for medical apathy.
The incident came to light at Pt Madan Mohan Malviya Shatabdi Hospital in Chembur, where a sweeper was performing an ECG instead of a trained technician. The BMC officials informed the commission that the technician post had been vacant for the past year. The officials asked to assign a trained employee to operate the ECG machine.
The Mumbai civic body has not given any details regarding the training received by the employee. The incident came to light when a woman patient complained to MSHRC, showing photos of a sweeper performing an ECG on a patient at the hospital.
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Taking action on informing BMC about the vacant post, MSHRC chairperson Justice AM Badar directed the BMC commissioner to immediately appoint a trained ECG technician at the hospital and also pay Rs 12 lakh as compensation for violating human rights and negligence in protecting the rights of numerous patients at the hospital over the past year. The compensation is to be paid to the Maharashtra State Legal Services Authority, according to The Times of India report.
MSHRC said that sanitary workers of the BMC hospital are taking ECGs of patients. Stated that the incident is serious, asked BMC commissioner to conduct an inquiry into the matter, which is serious in nature regards to human lives of thousands of patients.
BMC stated that the technician required to operate the ECG had to be qualified in the science stream. However, BMC failed to provide any evidence of conducting a training programme for the ward boy operating the machine.