The Delhi government on Wednesday inaugurated four ‘Mahila Mohalla Clinics’ (neighbourhood clinics for women) across the city.
All employees at these clinics will be female and they will treat only children under 12 years of age and women. Services at these clinics will be available from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on weekdays.
In its 2021 budget, the Delhi government had announced the plan to set up 100 mahila mohalla clinics to address the unmet healthcare needs of the city’s women and children. On Wednesday, it said that as part of a pilot project, it will open 10 such clinics in different phases.
Inaugurating one of the four clinics near Kali Mata Mandir at Bangla Sahib Road in central Delhi, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said, “This Mahila Mohalla Clinic model is the first of its kind in our country. Like normal mohalla clinics, every treatment will be free here. In addition to the 239 tests done at mohalla clinics, all tests related to female and adolescent healthcare will be done at mahila mohalla clinics.”
The other three have come up at Basti Vikas Kendra JJ Camp in Motilal Nehru Camp, Sapera Basti in Kondli, and DJB Sewage Pumping Station in Batla House.
‘False claim’
Reacting to the development, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said it was a “false claim” by Mr. Kejriwal about the Mahila Mohalla Clinic model being the country’s first of its kind. Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said, “It is sad that CM Kejriwal, after almost eight years in office, doesn’t know that the MCD has been running 130 Mahila Health Centres for decades, apart from 30 Maternity Centres and dedicated Kasturba Gandhi Hospital only for women.”
At the inauguration, Mr. Kejriwal said, “Delhi has always had big hospitals like AIIMS, Safdarjung, LNJP, GTB and G.B. Pant, but for primary healthcare, for some common health issues such as a regular cold and cough, people did not have an alternate facility that would cater to them. They would need to visit these big hospitals, often having to wait in long queues and not get medicines free of cost.”
He said that after Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) came to power, it started mohalla clinics and there are currently 521 such clinics in the city. “This enabled the people to visit clinics in their own ‘mohallas’ and get health issues addressed. This also solved the problem of overcrowding at major hospitals. Over here, tests are also free of cost for the people and so are their medicines,” Mr. Kejriwal said. Through mohalla clinics, the AAP’s flagship project, he added the Delhi government aims to provide primary healthcare facilities.
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