NEW DELHI: A major chunk of this year’s health budget has been allocated for expansion of health infrastructure in the national capital with Delhi’s Finance Minister Manish Sisodia proposing a total outlay of Rs 9,769 crore for the sector.
He also announced a health helpline number and an e-health card to ease out the process of seeking medical help and appointments for patients.
This is the first time since the Aam Aadmi Party came to power in 2015 that the health outlay has been curtailed, as this year’s budget made more allocations for improving road infrastructure.
The budget allocates Rs 1,900 crore for construction of new hospitals and remodelling of existing government hospitals in the city. These will together add 16,000 hospital beds in Delhi, said Sisodia. “The work of remodelling 15 existing hospitals has started and proposals are being prepared for four new hospitals. Once the new hospitals are built, the capacity will be increased by 16,000 beds,” said Sisodia.
Under these, a 768 bed hospital at Burari has been completed. Arrangements have also been made for the treatment of Covid patients at Indira Gandhi Hospital in Dwarka, which will start functioning at its full capacity from next year.
He added that the government is going to take two big steps to improve the way citizens seek medical help for which an outlay of Rs 160 crore has been made. The first is Hospital Information Management System, under which, a QR code based e-health card will be made available to all citizens on the basis of their voter ID cards and population register while the second will be a dedicated health helpline.
“These schemes will help in identifying patients and getting basic information about their disease with geo-tagging. This will make it easier for all citizens to get timely treatment,” the Deputy CM added.
E-health card, helpine to come up
The government is going to take two big steps to improve medical help for citizens. An outlay of Rs 160 crore was alloted. The first is Hospital Information Management System, under which, a QR code based e-health card will be made available on the basis of voter ID cards while the second will be a dedicated health helpline. The budget also earmarked Rs 475 crore for its flagship Mohalla Clinics project and polyclinics.
Break-up
Rs 9,769 cr Allotted to health sector