Soon after Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta inaugurated health facilities, Delhi Congress alleged that BJP has only applied fresh coat of paints on existing dispensaries to pass them off as modern ‘Ayushman Arogya Mandirs’.
Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president Devender Yadav said that these dispensaries with all the health facilities were established by the Congress government.
“CM Rekha Gupta had announced the opening of Ayushman Arogya Mandirs with pomp and show, but according to health department data, out of the 33 new Ayushman Arogya Mandirs, 29 were already functioning as primary health centres and four as sub-centers. The BJP Government has turned the health facilities from ICUs to ventilators in the past 100 days,” he said.
Yadav said that the BJP Government has merely repaired and painted these existing dispensaries to rename as Ayushman Arogya Mandirs to mislead the public.
He said that an old clinic in Tis Hazari was presented as the first “Ayushman Arogya Mandir,” even though there is neither sufficient staff nor medicines, pharmacists, yoga trainers and data entry operators in the ‘Mandir’, as the Rekha Gupta Government was also playing fraud on the poor people like the Kejriwal government had done by setting up some “Mohalla Clinics” to loot the people in the name of conducting over 200 tests in such clinics.
He said that the Rekha Gupta government’s move to run the Arogya Mandirs with just four employees as a model health center was an attempt to play with the health of the common people who cannot afford to go for treatment in private hospitals.
“With a budget of only Rs 56.31 crore received from the National Health Mission, there is severe financial constraint for the appointment of staff, who include only 98 medical officers, 123 staff nurses, 33 lady health visitors, and 33 public health managers, thus making effective operation of the 123 Arogya Mandirs impossible,” he said.
He further stated that the total budget provision for the Ayushman Arogya Mandir was just Rs 320 crore, but so far only Rs. 56.31 crore have been sanctioned, indicating that both the government’s intentions and plans are questionable.
Yadav stated that the government claims it will also provide services such as cancer screening, immunization, and family planning, but there is neither extra funding nor necessary infrastructure for this. Each center is only allocated 1,000 rupees per month — that is, just 250 rupees per week — for wellness sessions, which will merely become a tokenistic scheme.
He said that the BJP government should focus on strengthening primary health services rather than changing names and engaging in false promises. “The Congress party strongly opposes this kind of deceptive and superficial politics and will continue to inform Delhi’s people of the truth,” he added.
