A “severe” lack of funds and medical staff, the absence of basic facilities such as rooms for doctors, nurses, mortuaries and even parking spaces in the construction plans have forced work at 24 new and existing hospitals into limbo, officials said.
The redevelopment of 13 existing hospitals, four new hospitals, and re-engineering of seven new hospitals as ICU facilities is being taken up as part of a consolidated project. These under-construction facilities now require Rs 10,250 crore so work can be completed in three years — apart from an annual sum of Rs 8,000 crore to remain operational — as per the Delhi Health Department’s submissions at a review meeting.
The meeting was chaired by Delhi LG VK Saxena at Raj Niwas on September 11 and attended by Health Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj in addition to senior officers.
Delhi Health Secretary SB Deepak Kumar, officials said, made a presentation outlining the challenges being faced by the department in completing the projects, highlighting that the annual allocation of Rs 372 crore for them meant it was “unlikely these hospitals would be completed even in a decade”.
Kumar also said the amount will have to be doubled to even run the hospitals. Saxena, officials said, expressed concern regarding arbitration cases already trickling in and cost escalation due to delays. The initial cost projection for the work was Rs 3,800 crore.
The first tenders for the project were floated in 2019-2021 where an estimated cost of Rs 3,906.70 crore was projected. The projects were expected to be completed in six months to a year given the fact that prefabricated material was to be used for a majority of them.
Due to the delay, according to government officials, initial costs have shot up by several thousands of crores including, among other components, about Rs 5,000 crore just for furniture and medical equipment.
What also needs to be done, officials said, is the creation of an estimated 38,000 additional posts of doctors, specialists and paramedics for the functioning of the upcoming facilities.
In response, the AAP said, “The health minister was constantly writing to the LG regarding his duty to create posts for upcoming hospitals… However, the LG was running away from his constitutional responsibilities and duties. The Minister had been reminding the LG, through written letters, that till full-time permanent specialists and doctors are recruited through the UPSC, the LG should initiate the process of hiring doctors and specialists on a contract basis. However, he did not initiate that process by citing frivolous excuses.”
“Now, after the directions of the Hon’ble High Court of Delhi, the LG was bound to hold a meeting and has accepted it is indeed his duty to create posts for upcoming hospitals,” it added.
In the meeting, the LG is learned to have flagged the lack of proper planning, including decisions about whether the hospitals would be run in a partnership with the private sector or by the government. Officials said when the LG asked how the hospitals would be run, he was told a decision on this had not yet been taken. Saxena directed the Council of Ministers to decide so budgetary allocation and staffing needs could be finalised, it is learned.
A decision, officers said, was also pending on whether the hospitals would be super-specialty, general or district level or tertiary hospitals “since the requirement of specialists will be determined on the basis of these decisions”.
The AAP, however, said, “The LG fails to understand that a few years ago, the world was facing Covid, the biggest pandemic of the last few decades. In June 2020, there were scientific projections that Delhi will have 20 lakh Covid patients and around 80,000 patients will require hospitalization. The Delhi government at that time was proactive in deciding and allocating resources to build thousands of ICU beds in the form of new hospitals and hospital blocks. The government has always prioritized the health of its people over budget constraints… With time, the urgency of requiring thousands of ICU beds has faded across the world. All these things were discussed in the meeting of the LG in the presence of over a dozen officers.”
An officer at the meeting said it was pointed out that of the new hospitals being constructed, there was no place for parking. Officials also said the Administrative Reforms Department said it had recently begun the process of finalization of creation of posts for the upcoming hospitals which would be completed during the current year and the process will then be started for hospitals that will be completed in the next year.
It is learned that Health Minister Bharadwaj stated that the challenges he was now being informed of by the Health Secretary had not been communicated to him in the past. “The secretary, however, said all issues were duly brought up in meetings taken by the minister,” an official said.
Responding to AAP’s comments, the L-G’s Secretariat said it had not issued any statement regarding the meeting. “Minutes of the meeting have been issued by the Secretary (Health), who reports directly to Minister Bharadwaj, and not by the LG Secretariat. (AAP’s) statement takes alibi of Covid to justify the construction of 24 buildings worth Rs 10,000 crore, construction of which started in 2020 with a deadline of one year, but all of them are far from completion… the minister would have done better to initiate the process of creation of posts for these supposed hospitals. The Services Department and LG have nothing to do with the creation of posts. The Services Department only fills those posts through UPSC and DSSSB.”