Multi-speciality hospital, rape crisis cells get nod

Jaitley earmarks Rs 2,724 crore for city's health sector

Union Fiance Minister Arun Jaitley earmarked an amount of Rs 2,724 crore for the health sector for the current fiscal year while announcing Delhi’s Budget on Friday. 

This is around 16.3 per cent of the total plan outlay (excluding the Centrally Sponsored Scheme).

At a time when cases of rape and sexual assault are rising in the city, the government has proposed one-stop centres for crisis management and rehabilitation of sexual assault victims in each government hospital in every district.

Three such centres are likely to come up at Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU), Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital (GTB) and Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital in the next three months.

While announcing the Budget, Jaitley said, “Victims can be provided proper medical care along with legal and psycho-social counseling and support in a secure, gender friendly environment. Central government has already committed its support to provide these in this financial year.”

The crisis cell in DDU will be ready by next week, confirmed the hospital’s medical superintendent Dr Bharat Singh.

“The crisis cell is coming up in the casualty block. While one room will be devoted for examination of the victim, the other will accommodate a woman police personnel, a counsellor and the victim’s family members. The hospital sees at least four such cases every month,” said Dr Singh. 

The Centre sanctioned one multi-speciality hospital in south Delhi in the current year to address the lack of sound healthcare facilities under the government sector in the area. 

A new medical college with 100 seats will come up in Rohini. “Efforts will be made to ensure that the first batch of students are admitted by 2015,” said Jaitley in his speech. 

Meanwhile, the government announced 50 dialysis units which will be commissioned in the current year for providing free dialysis to poor patients.

Thirty such units have already been commissioned under public private partnership (PPP) for treatment of kidney ailments.

For prompt trauma care, 110 new ambulances will be inducted in the Centralised Accident and Trauma Services (CATS) fleet. These will be fitted with state-of-the-art life support equipment. 

“The induction of new ambulances will help us provide relief to patients faster. Though we ensure quick action in trauma cases, this step would definitely benefit us.

 Induction of doctors and technical staff would help hospitals combat shortage of manpower. There should be programmes which motivate nurses to attend to patients in a better manner,” said medical superintendent of GB Pant Hospital Dr S P Jayant.  Recently, the government recruited 900 doctors and 1,100 nurses for the city hospitals. Also, efforts are on to add 1,400 beds.

“Hospital projects for Rs 940 crore are currently under execution which would provide over 1,400 additional beds,” said Jaitley in his speech.

A proposal has been made for setting up three more forensic science laboratories at Sheikh Sarai, Rohini and village Sayurpur.  Lands have been purchased for the projects at a cost of Rs 11.25 crore.

One more regional laboratory will be made functional from a rented accommodation in Chanakya Puri till the new projects are complete. 

This is mainly to cope with the workload in the existing laboratory.

Meanwhile, the government would also aim to convert Lok Nayak Hospital and GTB into model healthcare centres as these cater to around one-third of the total patient rush in government hospitals.  

The total Budget estimate for the current fiscal is Rs 36,766 crore. This includes Rs 19,066 crore non-plan expenditure and Rs 17,700 crore plan expenditure.