A woman gave birth to a baby at the gate of a recently-opened AAP Polyclinic after the Maternity Hospital at Kanti Nagar was shut down to open AAP’s first polyclinic. Polyclinic staff said the pregnant women had come to the polyclinic unaware of the fact that the maternity ward has been colsed. later, she was taken to the nearest Hedgewar hospital.
Many other maternity patients who are visiting AAP Government’s first Polyclinic, which replaced Health cum Maternity Hospital at Kanti Nagar, are disappointed and turning back to other hospitals for gynecology services. On Tuesday, The Pioneer did a reality check and found that dedicated maternity ward was closed. Patients said previously, the maternity hospital here was the lifeline for the residents to receive the gynaecology services. They complained that the AAP Government has closed the gynaecology ward and beds are lying vacant.
“Why did they have to close the maternity ward to open the polyclinic when all facilities were available hereIJ Why couldn’t they have just kept the maternity services open and boosted it with other medical servicesIJ” said a staffer at the facility who had been working there even when it was the maternity hospital.
Around three weeks ago, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal inaugurated AAP’s first Polyclinic with much fanfare. Interestingly, it wasn’t a new facility but had just replaced the Health cum Maternity Hospital that already existed at Kanti Nagar. Barely three weeks into its operation, the much-touted project has drawn flak from the residents of the area.
However, the polyclinic’s in-charge Dr Faheem Akhtar said, “The newly-launched Polyclinic is providing OPDs of medicine, surgery, orthopaedics, paediatrics, dermatology, ENT and eye treatment. Besides, blood tests are also conducted on a daily basis. Only, pre-delivery services will be given to the maternity patients. For delivery and post-delivery services, we are referring patients to Hedgewar Hospital,” he added. However, he refused to answer why Maternity Services are closed at the polyclinic.
The newly-opened OPDs do not have the x-rays, ultrasound and other facility machines required for the eye and ENT treatment.
The Government is reluctantly claiming that they are boosting the healthcare system in Delhi, but no big change has been made so far, sources
said. “There are shortages of doctors, paramedical staff, medicines and equipment,” added the source.
Talking about the initiatives taken by the AAP Government to start the new polyclinic, a staffer said, “What the Government has done is that over all, the hospital has been whitewashed and nothing new is here… Patients are unhappy with the closure of maternity services. It is beginning to function like any other Government health care centre.”
According to the Polyclinic staff, scrapping the maternity services is a bad idea. Instead, they should have boosted it up. “The previous Government started this ‘Health cum Maternity Hospital’ with a view that people can get the treatment at their door step. locals here cannot afford to go to big hospitals. Therefore, pregnant ladies will give birth to their babies at home. Bura haal kar diya es hospital ka,” said the staff of Polyclinic.
Earlier, the hospital used to run 24 hours providing health services to the patients. However, the scenario is different now. The polyclinic starts at 9 am and is open till 4 pm in the evening. Patients who turn after 4 pm cannot be attended as no doctor is available there.
“Government has also closed emergency dispensary for the pregnant women,” said the Polyclinic staff. Earlier, there used to be huge crowd of patients, but today hardly any patient can be seen, added the staffer.
However, when Health Minister Satyendra Jain was contacted to take his version about why the maternity ward was closed, he did not respond to the calls.
Earlier in July, the Mohalla Clinic was inaugurated by Delhi Chief Minister Arivind Kerjiwal which had failed to provide much relief to dengue patients when Delhi was suffering from the worst dengue outbreak in decades.