2nd phase of Bhagwati Hospital’s revamp begins

The new building will have eight floors, capacity of 490 beds and will cost around ₹500 crore

Mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar performed the groundbreaking ceremony for the second phase of the redevelopment of Bhagwati Hospital in Borivali on Tuesday.

The revamped hospital will have a capacity of 490 beds. The redevelopment has been pending for years now and will take another three years to be completed. The new building will have eight floors and cost around ₹500 crore. In the second phase, Bhagwati Hospital will have departments such as medicine, surgery, orthopaedic, paediatric, and ophthalmology. It will offer super-specialties such as nephrology, dialysis, gastroenterology medicine, gastroenterology surgery, burns, cardiology and their intensive care units.

The redevelopment of three municipal hospitals — MT Agarwal in Mulund, Shatabdi Hospital in Govandi and Bhagwati Hospital in Borivali — was moving at a snail’s pace due to repeated delays in awarding the contracts. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) took a decision to give a holistic makeover to these hospitals and develop one speciality each for them. The reconstruction of the three hospitals is expected to cost around ₹1,000 crore. With the redevelopment, the BMC will be adding more than 500 beds in these hospitals.

In 1962, Harilal Bhagwati donated a plot to the BMC for the construction of a public hospital and the 50-bedded hospital came up on the plot in 1968. Eventually, the hospital’s capacity increased to 363 beds. Its redevelopment was envisaged in 2009 and work on its first phase started in 2010. Eventually, most of the hospital’s operations were moved to Shatabdi Hospital in Kandivali as the building became dilapidated. In July 2016, the first phase was completed and a 110-bedded medicine department was started in the adjoining building.

Dr. P. Jadhav, head of peripheral hospitals in the BMC, said, “Apart from secondary services, we are providing super specialty services like dialysis, nephrology, gastroenterology medicine and gastroenterology surgery, and cath lab. People living in the western suburbs will largely benefit from this and it will take the load off our hospitals like KEM. Besides, we will be starting an ICU in the first phase.”