Mohalla Clinics Archives - Lokmarg

Unlock 1.0 in Delhi, with the opening of borders, has led to huge mobility and activity, even while the markets have reopened and people are trying to recapture their outdoor lives after weeks of depressing quarantine in lockdown. The renewed presence of people outside on the streets and partial commercial activity have seen a simultaneous rise in Covid-19 cases across the National Capital. With 50,000 plus cases, and around 2,000 deaths, deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia has given a stern warning that by June-end there might be 1,00,000 cases in Delhi alone, and by the end of July perhaps as many as 5,00,000 cases. This is a grim and dire prediction signifying that post-lockdown the virus has spread across the spectrum, and so drastically, while the official health and hospital system seem to be cracking under the burden.

The news that the Delhi health minister has been infected and is critically ill is bad news, and one wishes him a speedy recovery. Earlier several doctors and health workers in leading hospitals like AIIMS had fallen ill, even while the stark lack of PPEs and gas masks, including ventilators and oxygen, had only made the situation more tragic and tense. Nurses have been resigning en masse from both private and government hospitals and the acute lack of beds, for those patients who have tested positive, has been all apparent.

There have been reports of people running from pillar to post to get themselves tested since the doctors and the hospitals refuse to admit patients, and the usual bureaucratic structures in government hospitals have not helped. Indeed, besides education and the successful experiment of ‘mohalla clinics’, the Delhi government was much appreciated for its stellar work in the health sector, while they made all kinds of tests and treatment totally free for the citizens of Delhi.

ALSO READ: ‘Doctors Giving Their Best, Public Support Vital’

This presumably strong edifice seems to have cracked under the pressure of the pandemic, with both the state and the Centre having caught off-guard and the health structures under great stress. Indeed, the prestigious hospitals in Delhi under the central government and the Union health minister too are under severe stress, even as they handle the pressure from patients from other states with crumbling or weak health infrastructures, as in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

What has been really disturbing is the manner in which some private hospitals and health care institutions in Delhi have chosen to behave. They are reportedly charging huge sums, often in lakhs, from patients, thereby shutting the door to those patients who don’t have deep pockets, and parasiting on those who just don’t have any option in a desperate situation with government hospitals denying them admission, treatment or testing facilities. There was a case of an elderly asthmatic patient who was shunted from one hospital to another, both private and government, to the extent that the man died on the streets outside one hospital, with his family begging to the doctors who simply refused treatment.

Besides, what about those patients who are suffering from other ailments — cancer, tuberculosis, heart diseases, etc? With OPDS practically shut, private clinics dysfunctional, and doctors refusing to come home, where do they go for treatment or a check-up?

Why can’t private hospitals in Delhi be put in line with a government order asking them to admit and treat all critical patients, come what may, and not charge a penny extra, as Mamata Banerjee has ordered in Bengal, and as was the norm in Kerala? What stops the central government to issue a directive to all private hospitals not to fleece patients and treat all them without exploitation and with dignity in a national crisis?

ALSO READ: ‘Choked Toilets, Smelly Linen, Quarantine Is Jail’

Besides, overworked doctors and nurses and health staff, have had their professional lives stretched to the ultimate limits, even while they risk their lives as frontline workers to fight the epidemic. Besides asking people to beat ‘thalis’ etc in praise, the central government does not seem have had any intention to give them benefits or incentives to boost their morale in such difficult work conditions. Most doctors and health staff thereby have been left to their own fate.

Besides, the central government seems to have turned a blind eye to the massive crisis since January this year, and this transparent indifference and insensitivity only continued with the tragic migration of lakhs of workers, their wives and children, starving, thirsty, emaciated and totally helpless. Thereby, no one really knows what the state of affairs of the tens of thousands of workers is who have reached their homes in small towns and villages. These places so brazenly lack even the most basic health structures, with even the primary health or community centres absent, and the district hospitals in dire straits. This seems to be a pattern in the Hindi heartland, especially in UP and Bihar. More so, around 25 lakh workers are reportedly now in transit or quarantine.

WATCH: ‘No Money, No Food, No Work’

The good news is that the Delhi government has promised another 15,000 beds by June 30. Recently, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal visited the Radhasoami Satsang Beas in South Delhi’s Chhatarpur. The Delhi government is creating a makeshift Covid-19 health care facility with 10,000 beds in a vast open area, which will be centrally air-conditioned and fully equipped. Besides, the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) has urged the central government to provide 2,000 health care officials from the army and security services, including doctors and nurses; they should be allowed to work in this huge, temporary hospital.

“This 10,000-bed facility should be ready for admission of Covid-19 patients by the first week of July. It will primarily cater to patients with mild or no symptoms who cannot be assigned home quarantine for some reason and may need medical intervention. It will be our biggest, dedicated Covid health centre,” Kejriwal said.

This is indeed a positive move in a context that till now India has had been lucky not to face a situation as rampant in the USA, or as in Brazil. With indications and fear that the virus will peak in the days to come, and with the lockdown decisively lifted, including on train and air travel, it will be a tight-rope walk for both citizens and the governments. And Delhi being the capital will have to really pull up all its resources, talent, commitment and infrastructure, so that people do not suffer and the pandemic can be controlled.

Outsmarting the heavy-handed, powerful and well-funded electoral juggernaut engine of the BJP in the coming Delhi Elections, Arvind Kejriwal is playing by his game plan, frustrating Amit Shah’s well known strategy of communal and divisive politics. The Delhi Election is only a week away. The capital has eluded the BJP for 22 years. It is desperate to ‘own’ it.

Predictably, the saffron party’s campaign, led by home minister Amit Shah, has been aimed at polarising voters along religious lines. Its infamous and well tested strategy of dividing the opposition, isolating a minority and infusing a communal agenda in the election is being thrown at full force to wrest Delhi from Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Admi Party. But Kejriwal is avoiding a counter attack. The question on people’s mind is whether he will buckle.

ALSO READ: Why Kejriwal Still Has The Edge

The young Aam Admi Party is proving to be a tough and smart competitor. The Delhi chief minister has refused to take the BJP’s bait and deliberately steered clear of engaging with the saffron party on the ongoing Shaheen Bagh protest, a recurring theme in Shah’s speeches.

The home minister and the BJP’s army of campaigners has launched a vicious attack against the protest, describing it as an anti-national act. They have accused opposition parties of supporting the agitation who, they charge, are speaking Pakistan’s language. While inciting violence, the BJP has also gone as far as to describe Kejriwal as a terrorist.

Kejriwal’s AAP is, however, treading cautiously. Well aware that it is ill-equipped to counter the BJP’s brand of communal politics, the party is keeping the focus on its government’s achievements. Despite provocation from the other side, Kejriwal has not deviated from this carefully-crafted strategy of continuously highlighting how his government reduced power and water bills, improved the quality of education in government schools, set up mohalla clinics to provide health facilities in slums and introduced free bus travel for women.

ALSO READ: Amit Shah Is Playing With Fire

The subtle message of his “positive” campaign is that good governance benefits all sections of society and is not aimed at appeasing any one caste or community. On its part, the BJP has attempted to discredit Kejriwal for not delivering on his promises by pointing to the poor conditions in schools and the non-functioning mohalla clinics. But this has not cut much ice with the people. The underclass is firmly with the AAP. However, it is not clear if the BJP’s polarising campaign is having an impact, especially on the middle classes which are known to be taken in easily by its majoritarian agenda.

Kejriwal has always been adept at playing the victim card. When he entered politics seven years ago, he was constantly at war with the Modi government which, he charged, was meting out step-motherly treatment to Delhi only because it was led by the AAP. He complained that his government’s proposals were deliberately kept pending by the Centre and that he was not even allowed to appoint officials of his choice. But he has changed tack over the past year. Kejriwal stopped attacking Modi and even supported the Centre’s move to abrogate Article 370. Instead, the Delhi chief minister concentrated on propagating his government’s achievements and kept himself busy, launching a slew of schemes before the declaration of elections.

ALSO READ: If Shah Can’t Budge, Shaheen Bagh Too Won’t

As he fights to retain power for a second consecutive term, Kejriwal got another shot at playing the victim when BJP leader Parvesh Verma described him as a terrorist during the ongoing poll campaign. Instead of adopting a combative stand, which had become his trademark, Kejriwal struck an emotional note, saying he gave up his government job, sat on hunger strike in his fight against corruption and worked tirelessly to improve the education and health facilities in Delhi despite being severely diabetic. “I leave it to the people of Delhi to decide if they think of me as a son, brother or a terrorist,” he said plaintively.

This is not the first time that Kejriwal has donned a new avatar. He came into the limelight during the 2011 anti-corruption movement, demanding the immediate enactment of a Jan Lokpal Bill to scrutinize corruption cases against government officials and politicians.

But the activist-turned-politician quickly shifted his stand after the formation of the Aam Admi Party. Though he came to power on the anti-corruption plank, Kejriwal instead found merit in wooing the poor jhuggi jhopri residents and the lower middle classes by promising them cheaper power and water and better infrastructure, thus successfully hijacking the Congress support base.

The choice of a broom as his election symbol was another masterstroke as the scheduled castes immediately related to it as they believed it gave them dignity. At the same time, the broom symbolised the sweeping away of corruption and the promise of a cleaner government. Kejriwal also surprised mainstream political parties by building a strong party organization in a short span of time. His band of soldiers kept a low profile and worked tirelessly and silently in the slums as well as tony upper-middle-class colonies. He shocked his political rivals when the AAP won 67 of the 70 Delhi assembly seats in 2015.

For the BJP, the Delhi assembly election has become a prestige issue. For fifteen years, it tried but failed to dislodge the Congress. Today, it has put its entire election machinery at work to oust Kejriwal’ AAP, its new political enemy Unable to corner Kejriwal on the issue of poor governance, the BJP decided to go back to what is its trump card: communal polarisation. Besides demonizing the Shahbeen Bagh protesters, the BJP leaders are also highlighting the abrogation of Article 370, the triple talaq bill and the new citizenship law as the Modi government’s achievements to woo voters.

Though the BJP’s strategy of focusing on national issues did not yield the desired results in the recent Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand assembly polls, the party is banking on the fact that as residents of the country’s capital, voters in Delhi have far greater exposure to national issues and are more influenced by them than voters in other states. It is equally true that the BJP has no choice but to highlight its ideological agenda as it is finding it difficult to corner the AAP on the issue of governance.

Tag: Mohalla Clinics

Delhi Shows How NOT To Manage A Pandemic