Kejriwal inaugurates 100 mohalla clinics
Govt to open another 100 next month, every square kilometre of residential area will have one clinic: CM
NEWDELHI: Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal inaugurated 100 mohalla clinics across the city on Saturday at a ceremony in Timarpur, taking the total number of clinics in the city to 302. These clinics had opened gradually in just over a month.
The government plans to open a total of 1,000 such clinics across the city to ensure people can readily access healthcare.
“The mohalla clinics were initially conceived in 2015, and the thought behind it was that people had to travel a lot and go to the big hospitals for the treatment of minor ailments too. Our aim is to ensure they can get it near their homes. Of the 1,500 square kilometre-area of Delhi, leaving the forests and Yamuna aside, there is about 1,000sqkm where people live. This means that there will be one mohalla clinic, every square km,” Kejriwal said.
The government said it will open another 100 mohalla clinics next month. Three of the clinics will be in Metro stations, three at inter-state bus terminals, and five at vegetable markets.
“In the last 70 years, around 260 clinics and dispensaries have been set up by governments. The number of mohalla clinics that we have started exceeds that now. When all the mohalla clinics come, up people will be able to just walk five to 10 minutes and reach one,” Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain said.
“People who go to mohalla clinics know the difference between dispensaries and mohalla clinics. Mohalla clinics do 212 tests, even the expensive ones,” he said.
He added that Delhi government has done things that no other government in the world has — setting up of as many primary care clinics in one term, installing 2.8 lakh CCTV cameras within 6 months, putting up two lakh street lights, making 21,000 classrooms in the government schools.
“If you travel abroad, you have to get health insurance in case you meet with an accident. In Delhi, if anyone meets with an accident — whether they are Indians or not, whether they are Delhi residents or not — the Delhi government will pay for their treatment,” Jain said.