5 years on, hospital still awaits its trauma centre

NEW DELHI: In September 2019, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal laid the foundation stone for the construction of a 362-bed trauma facility at Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital in Mangolpuri. Five years later, despite regular claims that the centre would be ready soon, the almost-ready hospital building doesn’t look like it will be functioning any time soon.Now there is already a blame game going on between the state govt and the LG’s office on who is responsible for the delays.
The latest of numerous deadlines that the centre, being constructed by PWD, missed was May 31. The building is now expected to be ready by June-end, after which fire and pollution clearances will be sought. These would take a few months.
The Delhi cabinet note on the project touted the facility as the biggest trauma facility in the city. “All the 362 beds here will be emergency beds, which means we will require round-the-clock care in all the wards,” said a hospital official, requesting not to be named. “The staff will need to work in three shifts. Keeping the number of patients we expect, we have proposed a staff of around 2,700, including surgeons, doctors, nursing and technical personnel, paramedics and security people.”
The recruitment proposal, it is learnt, has been under the consideration of the administration reforms and public grievance department for the last two years.
When asked if the procurement of equipment and machinery had been initiated, TOI was told that Delhi govt’s health department had been given a list of needs. These were ascertained after a team from Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital visited other trauma centres, including at AIIMS, Safdarjung Hospital and GB Pant Hospital. “Based on the visits, we have submitted a tentative list of equipment, their specifications and costs to the health department,” said a hospital official.
When TOI wondered why there was a delay in recruitment and machinery procurement, govt sources said no allocations had been made for these in the 2023-24 state budget. A source claimed there was “no budget support for HR and infrastructure” at the trauma centre.
A govt statement however added, “There are multiple hospitals being constructed by govt of Delhi and these will add almost 10,000 beds to the govt health infrastructure of Delhi. However, the most important component of any functional hospital is manpower which includes doctors, specialists and nursing staff. As of today, there has been an undue long delay in hiring of this manpower even for vacant positions in existing Delhi Govt hospitals. As the hiring of doctors, specialists and nurses is directly under lieutenant governor, several letters have been written to him about the recruitment.”
The statement said that a special committee formed by Delhi High Court had indeed highlighted the lack of doctors and specialists as a major problem in the city’s govt hospitals. “The high court is expecting the services department directly under LG to expedite the hiring process. The hospitals are almost ready, but they require doctors and specialists to run them. Without doctors and nurses, the buildings and equipment will start deteriorating if they are not used. The power to hire doctors and specialists was given to the elected govt of Delhi by the Supreme Court but the central govt has passed on this power to LG. This is very unfortunate that LG is not doing justice to the power that has been snatched from the elected govt and given to him.”
Responding to Delhi govt’s accusation about the LG being the cause of delay in recruitment, the LG’s office said that Delhi govt’s services department recruits and hires personnel on the basis of demands placed by other departments, including health, which is fully a transferred subject under the law. “The health minister and his predecessors deliberately delayed regular appointments by the services department so that they could employ people on ad hoc and contract basis through corrupt and political means. Besides, the idea was to hand over public health infrastructure to chosen and favoured private players,” the statement alleged.
It went on, “Whenever a request has been submitted, LG has personally ensured that the required recruitments are done at the earliest through due process. Ever since LG Saxena took over in May 2022, more than 25,000 permanent vacancies have been filled and thousands are under way.”