Chandigarh, May 5, 2021
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA and deputy leader of opposition in the Punjab Assembly, Sarvjit Kaur Manuke said that the government healthcare system in the state was in shambles and instead of upgrading it with recruitment of more staff; the Captain Amarinder Singh-led government had handed over the ventilators to the private hospitals for shortage of staff. In a statement issued on Wednesday here, Sarvjit Kaur Manuke said that the people of Punjab were helpless due to the failure and incompetence of the Captain government. She said that the people were being looted of lakhs by the private hospitals for services that could have been free, if the government healthcare would have been upgraded.
Manuke said that while there was a severe shortage of medicines and oxygen across the state, about 300 ventilators provided by the central government to Punjab were gathering dust in the hospitals as there were no employees to run them. Taking a dig at the Captain government, Manuke said that Instances of ventilators were now being given to the private hospitals in Bathinda and Mohali. “Will they provide free service like government hospitals with these ventilators?” she questioned. Manuke said that the Captain government had not recruited doctors, medical staff and nurses in the state despite the warning of Covid pandemic and had not made arrangements for ventilator systems in the government hospitals.
She further said that as the Captain government had handed over many government ventilators to the private hospitals; the private hospitals were charging Rs 8 to 10 lakhs from the Covid patients for treatment; which was intolerable for a common man. Manuke further said that Captain Amarinder Singh had ruined the government departments as he was the supporter of ‘mafia rule’. She said that most of the district government hospitals in Punjab did not even have ventilator systems for the treatment of critically ill patients. “Even in Punjab Health and Family Welfare Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu’s own district SAS Nagar, there is no ventilator system in any of the government hospitals,” she added. Manuke said that the Captain-led Congress government had not been able to set up a single hospital with state-of-the-art facilities.
The AAP leader said that the existing National Health Mission (NHM) workers were on strike and no new recruitment was done by the Punjab government despite shortage of staff during the pandemic. “Despite warning of the second wave of Covid by the experts and seeing the situation last year during the first wave, the Captain government has still not made adequate arrangements of medical facilities and staff to tackle the ongoing pandemic,” she added. Manuke said that thousands of healthcare workers were working at meager salaries with the contractual workers working on a salary of Rs 10,000 per month, with manifold work being taken from them. She appealed to the Punjab government to take up the cause and provide better health and medical facilities to the people of the state during this time of pandemic.
