Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on Tuesday attack the previous Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government's health model, calling it "zero" and alleging large-scale mismanagement at government hospitals during AAP's tenure.
During a visit to the Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) Hospital, Gupta claimed the facility has turned into a "dumping ground" with unused medical equipment and incomplete hospital infrastructure.
"Since the Covid-19 pandemic, the warehouse here has been completely filled. Even today, 458 oxygen concentrators, 146 ventilators, 36,000 PPE kits, multipara monitors, masks, and other medical supplies are lying unused. This is not just the case with GTB Hospital, but with many hospitals across Delhi," Gupta alleged.
She also claimed that hospital buildings were constructed without proper planning, leading to wasteful expenditure.
"AAP built seven structures inside hospitals, turning parking lots and sports grounds into buildings that do not meet the medical facility parameters. These so-called 'semi-permanent structures' are only 60 per cent complete, and they will not be of any use even if Rs 2,500 crore more is spent on them," she said.
The chief minister also alleged that hospital staff had not been paid their salaries for six months.
"The health and management system of Delhi's hospitals is itself sick. How will the hospitals function in such a situation," she asked.
Accusing the previous AAP government of governance failures, Gupta said, "AAP's health and education model is nothing but zero. Their governance is only about publicity, not real work." On Monday, Gupta had targeted the AAP over a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report on public health infrastructure and management of health services in the capital during the latter's rule, calling it an "expose of widespread corruption".
"Every department under the AAP government was in shambles and needed treatment. The 'Mohalla Clinics' became a den of corruption, with no doctors, no medicines, and no patients," Gupta alleged on Monday.
"Many positions in the health department remain vacant. They bought equipment at inflated prices, and much of it is still lying unused in storage," she said.
Alleging that the hospitals lacked essential staff, Gupta said 2,186 nursing positions remain unfilled and that expensive medical machines were gathering dust in warehouses instead of being used in ICUs and CCUs.
"Fake patients were recorded in the Mohalla Clinics, fraudulent medical tests were conducted, payments were manipulated, and many hospitals were shut down. There was a scam in hospital cleaning contracts as well," Gupta claimed.
The CAG report on Delhi's health sector from 2016-17 to 2021-22, which Gupta tabled in the assembly on February 28, highlighted multiple irregularities in public healthcare spending.
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