Fifteen Delhi government hospitals are set to take the road to revamp. The Public Works Department has set the ball rolling on an Rs 2,029-crore project, which also involves adding new block and beds, apart from improving the infrastructure.

A PWD official told TOI that the project cost had been cleared and tenders were now being floated. Officials said the project had been planned in such a manner that daily functioning wouldn’t be hampered at any of the hospitals. If a particular ward is to be renovated, the patients there will be moved to another. 

The maximum budget — of around Rs 600 crore — has been laid out for Lok Nayak Hospital. An official said that while the hospital currently had 190 beds in the casualty ward, this number would be raised to 380. For this, Rs 59 crore has been earmarked, whereas addition of new blocks, including advanced pediatrics and maternity wards, would come at a cost of Rs 534 crore.

Satyawadi Raja Harish Chandra Hospital and Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital, too, have been allocated budgets of Rs 275 crore and Rs 195 crore, respectively. The former has 200 beds and 553 new ones are planned. Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital, on the other hand, will get another 100 beds to boost its current number of 450. As the 15 hospitals in question are scattered across the city, government sources said the revamp would be a huge boost for health infrastructure. With a budget of Rs 87 crore, Rao Tula Ram Hospital is likely to get 300 more beds, as will Acharya Shri Bhikshu Hospital.

Other key facilities that are set to get a shot in the arm are Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital, Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital, Aruna Asif Ali Hospital, and Bhagwan Mahavir Hospital, to name a few. With a budget of Rs 70 crore, Deep Chand Bandhu Hospital in Ashok Vihar, which currently has 284 beds, will see its number doubled. New units would also be introduced there, an official said. In its budget for 2019-20, Delhi government allocated Rs 7,485 to the health sector. Apart from the refurbishing of these hospitals, it also aims to set up 1,000 mohalla clinics.

Similarly, 25 polyclinics are already operational and 94 more dispensaries are being remodeled to start polyclinics to provide specialized healthcare to citizens. An outlay of Rs 375 crore was proposed for mohalla clinics and polyclinics in 2019-20, an official said. An official claimed that the city government had ensured the availability of free medicines to patients at various dispensaries and state-run hospitals.

Around 20 lakh patients benefited from this scheme every month, sources said. Delhi Government is also coming up with two new full-fledged hospitals — in Dwarka and Burari. Officials said the construction work for both had nearly been completed. The Burari one will be an 800-bed multi-specialty hospital and is likely to be opened by the end of the next month. The hospital in Dwarka may be thrown open to the public by the year-end. Share to Twitter