Chandigarh, May 8, 2021
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Prof Baljinder Kaur on Saturday said that due to lack of facilities in the hospitals and failure of the Captain Amarinder Singh-led Punjab government, the patients were going through tough times and left with no other option than to suffer. She said that the Captain government had failed to provide health services and save lives in the state during the ongoing pandemic. MLA Baljinder Kaur said that the OPDs had been shut down with the hospitals being reserved for Covid care and with this; the critical patients had nowhere to go. “The hospitals are being converted to Covid care centres and delays in treatment may cost life. The government should have explored options of converting university, college campuses as Covid centres,” said Baljinder Kaur.
Taking a dig at the Captain government, she said that instead of creating new healthcare facilities, the Punjab government was closing down treatments for critical patients. She said that an example of this was in Bathinda where cancer surgeries were already suspended and now will have to shelve other treatments as well due to the healthcare centres conversion to Covid care. She said that the people suffering with other illnesses being ignored by the government had exposed the substandard condition of Punjab’s health infrastructure and failure of the Captain Amarinder Singh-led Congress government. “The OPDs are being shut down in hospitals, patients with illnesses like Cancer; heart related diseases, sugar etc have nowhere to go. The patients who were supposed to undergo surgeries, tests and procedures are now left on God’s mercy,” she asserted.
The AAP leader termed it as incompetence of the Captain government to tackle the situation in the state amid the Covid outbreak by not coming up with better infrastructure and health facilities after the first wave that hit last year. On the other hand, the people of Punjab were helpless due to the failure of the government, as they were being looted of lakhs by the private hospitals for services that could have been free, if the government healthcare would have been upgraded. “The government healthcare system in the state is in shambles. There is no proper arrangement and facility to cater critical patients and in the present scenario, majority of the hospitals are reserved for Covid care,” she added. She said that there was a need to strengthen the health infrastructure in Punjab and the Captain government should take up the cause and provide better medical facilities to the people of the state during this time of pandemic.
