The government spent Rs 10 crore to build the state-of-the-art facility in Marathwada. The equipped building was completed last year but is lying unused due to absence of experts and required staff.

GMCH medical superintendent Suhas Jewlikar said the dialysis unit was functioning at the medicine department till now and was shifted to the new building on Wednesday. "Formally, the new building was inaugurated by acting dean Chhaya Diwan. The shifting of the dialysis unit from the medicine department was initiated," he said.

At present, the unit has one dialysis machine and other machines will be soon be set up at the building. The dialysis unit would be made fully functional in some days.

Activists, however, criticized the administration for the move and called it eyewash. "The building was constructed to serve poor patients with kidney ailments. Provision of infrastructure to perform kidney transplant was the objective behind setting up the facility," social activist Masihuddin Siddique said.

The building was inaugurated with much fanfare in February 2014; albeit without the posts of nephrologists and urologists being sanctioned to run the units. The inauguration was done days before the Lok Sabha elections code of conduct came into effect.

To build pressure on the government to fill up the posts of specialists at the unit, activists of Bharatiya Dalit Cobra had resorted to a hunger strike few months back.

Ashok Borde, president of the organization, said the government has failed to fill the posts of specialists at the only place available for affordable treatment for the poor patients from Marathwada and Khandesh.

Social activists said kidney patients had hoped to get treatment closer home after the new unit was inaugurated last year. The government's failure to make any appointments of experts to the unit has deprived the patients of affordable treatment.

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