The Gujarat High Court has permitted the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) to temporarily reduce the bed capacity at VS Hospital and Chinai Hospital to carry out renovation and restoration work.
The order, passed on Friday, relates to the 95-year-old VS Hospital, where several buildings are reportedly in a dilapidated condition. The court made it clear that the reduction in beds is only a temporary arrangement and that full capacity must be restored once the buildings are declared structurally safe and upgraded.
The decision came on an application filed by the AMC in connection with a public interest litigation (PIL) from 2020. The PIL had challenged the civic body’s earlier move to scale down hospital services after the SVP Institute of Medical Sciences and Research was set up nearby. Petitioners had argued that reducing VS Hospital’s capacity would affect poor and underprivileged patients.
During the hearing, AMC told the court that many hospital blocks are structurally unsafe and require urgent repairs. The civic body said it would be risky and impractical to continue full operations during major reconstruction work. The court accepted this argument and allowed a temporary reduction in bed capacity.
VS Hospital’s future has been under debate for several years. While the AMC had earlier assured that at least 500 beds would be maintained, the hospital once had a capacity of around 1,200 beds. Critics have repeatedly raised concerns over delays in using funds allocated for repairs and have urged the authorities to restore the hospital to its original strength.