Doubling the number of hospital beds to 20,000 and setting up more mohalla clinics were the focus areas of the Delhi Budget for healthcare, which was allocated ₹5,736 crore on Wednesday.
The Capital will also get seven new hospitals — three of which are already under construction.
The outlay for the health care sector — about 12% of the total budget of ₹48,000 crore — is 9% more than what was allocated last year.
Finance Minister Manish Sisodia said that health is second only to education on the AAP government’s priority list. “In the last two years, our government has worked to establish a three-tier healthcare system and our government will further strengthen this system in the next financial year.”
The three-tier healthcare system comprises mohalla clinics, polyclinics and hospitals. Regarding the first-tier: “110 mohalla clinics are already functional and this number will be increased to over 150 by the end of the current financial year 2016-17,” Mr. Sisodia said.
“Our second—tier is polyclinic where medicine and diagnostics will be free. Twenty-three such polyclinics are working and their number will be enhanced to 150 by the end of the next financial year.”
For the third-tier, Mr. Sisodia said that work is in progress to increase the number of hospital beds from 10,000 to 20,000 in the next 18 months.
“In addition, three hospitals at Burari, Ambedkar Nagar and Dwarka are under construction and another four are to be established at Sarita Vihar, Nangloi, Madipur and Sirsapur. There will be 5,000 new beds in these seven hospitals,” Mr. Sisodia said.
The budget has also proposed setting up five de-addiction centres for juveniles
Health cards
The government is also working on a scheme to issue health cards and provide health insurance to all Delhiites. An outlay of ₹20 crore is proposed for these schemes.
Pharmacies of five Delhi government hospitals will be outsourced and a free generic pharmacy, Jan Aushadhi, will be established outside Indraprastha Apollo Hospital.
Repeated promises
In its last budget, the Delhi government had proposed 10,000 new hospital beds and set a target of opening 1,000 mohalla clinics.
