Mumbai’s move to privatise five government hospitals will hit slum dwellers hard

For seven months last year, Aktari Mohammed Khan had to make frequent visits to Lokmanya Tilak Municipal hospital, 10 km from her home in Mumbai.

Khan had splitting headaches due to a neurological condition called occipital neuralgia. With no money to afford private treatment, she had to travel in crowded buses till the hospital in Sion, where a government neurologist treated her for free.

The 38-year-old lives in a tiny hutment in a slum in Mankhurd, where a large number of people displaced by various development projects in Mumbai have been settled over the years. Most of the slum’s residents live in cramped, poorly ventilated spaces and have little access to healthcare.

For years, they have demanded a government hospital for their needs.

In 2013, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority decided to construct a hospital for the rehabilitated people of Mankhurd. The hospital was supposed to have a high-tech operation theatre, a maternity wing and was to have been finished by 2015.

After a delay of 10 years, the hospital is nearly ready and has been handed over to the municipal corporation.

Domestic worker Sunita Gazdhane said they have waited for the hospital to open up for years. The 50-year-old lives in a hutment across the new hospital building. “It will...

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