MUMBAI: Drug-resistant tuberculosis patients across Mumbai can no longer rely on the neighbourhood TB specialists who have managed their care for more than a decade. Under a directive from the Central TB Division, trickling down from Delhi through state and district offices, the city’s suburban hospitals have now been stripped of their specially-deployed private pulmonologists.This could effectively force vulnerable, highly infectious patients to travel to South Mumbai, crowding into a handful of already saturated tertiary hubs in Parel, Mumbai Central, Juhu, Sion, and Byculla. Dr Shobini Rajan, Deputy Director General of the Central TB Division, declined to comment.A letter sent by the state TB department to the district reads, “NGO/Public-Private activities have not been approved in the Project Implementation Plan for the year 2026–2027.”State TB officer Dr Radhakrishnan Pawar said these projects were initiated based on a gap analysis and have been shut down due to a lack of funds.“If BMC wishes to continue them, they can deploy their own specialists or run the project using BMC funds,” he said. Dr Daksha Shah, Executive Health Officer, said that they are considering both these options to make up for the loss of doctors and could submit a proposal to keep the programme running to BMC.“We are first taking a count of the specialists we have in the peripheral hospitals and are checking if we can deploy them before coming up with an alternative,” she said.Dr Vikas Oswal, the first private pulmonologist deployed at BMC hospitals 14 years ago, said the move is bound to backfire as these specialists are urgently needed.“BMC or government hospitals alone will not be able to handle the entire load of TB cases. This model came into being acknowledging this, taking into account the rising drug-resistant cases. Private chest physicians were specially trained for this; there are eight of us working in severely high-burden areas where no one else wants to touch TB patients,” he said.One-year payment of many specialists deployed at govt hospitals is still due. Ganesh Acharya, city-based TB activist said, there should have been alternative arrangements made first before cancelling the programme as this would leave patients hanging.Separate from the deployment of specialists were the NGOs that used to run drug-resistant TB clinics in high-burden areas such as Mankhurd, providing services such as diagnostics, laboratory testing, and treatment.Meera Yadav, a city-based TB survivor who has worked with these organisations, said that many of them have hired past TB patients like herself for community outreach. “More TB cases are diagnosed in private setups or through such organisations. Patients do not directly approach government hospitals or clinics due to long wait times and overcrowding,” she said.Dr Shah said, “The private sector is liable to report new TB cases. We have told them to refer any poor patient that reaches their doorstep, this is what NGOs used to do. We are also arranging our own staff for much of such work.”
