AAP Calls BMC Commissioner’s claims of proposed polyclinics with Mohalla clinics as comparison of apples and organges; points out that Shiv Sena couldnt even get the basics right in 30 years.
The Aam Aadmi Party today asked BMC Commissioner Iqbal Chahal to fix Mumbai’s healthcare system beginning with primary healthcare and offerred to help BMC with the technical expertise, through the Delhi Govt. The party was reacting to Iqbal Chahal’s statement where he allegedly claimed to have studied the Delhi Model and had claimed that BMC polyclinics will be better than Delhi’s Mohalla clinics.
BMC has 187 public dispensaries, which are supposed to function as primary health centres. A vast majority of them are disfunctional due to poor infrastructure and flawed operations. The BMC hasn’t been able to fix something as basic as prmary health care, over the last 30 odd years.
Mumbai’s BMC hospital’s bed capacity has remained stagnant, despite a steep rise in population. For anything and everything, the poor are compelled to go to peripheral and tertiary hospitals, which leads to their capacity being overwhelmed and quality of service deteriorating.
“For the record, Delhi has a three tier public health system. Primary healthcare or Mohalla Clinics, Polyclinics or Secondary Healthcare and Tertiary Hospitals. Mohalla clinic. Delhi has Universal Free and Quality Healthcare for all it’s citizens. A mohalla clinic is at an avg distnce of 1km from the community that it was built to serve. Diagnostic tests are free, patient records are digitized, doctors are remunerated handsomely and should it take more than 30 days for a government facility to action a prescibed operation, the same can be availed free of cost, in a pvt facility of the patient’s cost.
Iqbal Chahal’s comparison is one of apples with organges and that of wilful obfuscation. The fact is that healthcare has never been BMC’s priority. They have actually turned it, into a money making racket, like everyother department, by outsourcing big ticket items.
Delhi’s Healthcare Model has won global acclaim and UN accolades. Why can’t it be implemented in Mumbai in toto? We will be more than happy to share Delhi Govt’s expertise with the BMC for the same.”, said Preeti Sharma Menon, AAP National Executive Member and Mumbai Prabhari.
