The Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP’s) chief spokesperson and MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj on Monday said that Uttarakhand has the worst health services among all the Himalayan States and patients lose their life before they even reach the hospital.

Citing a CAG report, he said that Uttarakhand’s health budget was Rs 188 crore in 2018-19 but that reduced to just Rs 97 crore in 2019-20 and only 5.25 paisa is being spent per person on healthcare in a year.

“Ambulance services are not available to bring patients to hospitals, air ambulances are used only for politicians and their relatives and the common man is left to die,” he said.

Bhardwaj said, “The recently published CAG report 2019-20 has revealed the extremely poor conditions of the health sector in Uttarakhand. The health situation is so grim that many women die in the initial stages of their pregnancy. The availability of ambulances is also so poor such that ‘Dandi Kandis’ (sort of litter made of bamboo) are used to take the patients to the hospitals and most of the time they die before reaching the hospital.”

“The CAG’s report has revealed many such shocking pieces of information as well. The most important information therein is that the debt burden of the Uttarakhand Government is constantly increasing.

Currently, the Uttarakhand Government is in a debt of Rs 65,982 crore. Moreover, the Government has adequate cash in many sub-bodies. Yet, the Government is unnecessarily taking loans from the market at expensive rates. The Uttarakhand Government has taken a loan of about Rs 5,100 crore from the market at expensive rates this year. Moreover, the report also reveals that the Government has spent about Rs 100 crore and is not aware of where it was spent,” he said.

The AAP leader further said, “If the AAP Government is formed in Uttarakhand, the people of the State will be able to get good and free health services like Delhi.”