By TCN News,
New Delhi: A group of senior AMU alumni based in Delhi led by P. Mohammad with Mohammad Aslam and Nehal Ahmed Siddique met with Union Health Secretary K N Desiraju and his team of Health Ministry officials including Joint Secretary of Ministry of Health Government of Delhi for creation of health care infrastructure in the minority concentrated Okhla area in the national capital.
As per available statistics around more than 40% patients in AIIMS/Delhi Hospitals are from Muslim minority only that means the health care infrastructure in the Minority Concentrated areas are fully ignored. The places like Okhla with more than a million urban poor and lower middle class Muslim Indian population in the very backyard of power centre of Delhi is without any basic health care infrastructure facilities.
From the last five years the reported number of Dengue and Malaria cases is highest from this region of Delhi only and these reports are published and discussed widely in national Media without any preventive and corrective actions from Health Ministry. The available corporate hospitals in this area are Escort/Apollo/Holy Family but the treatment cost of the patient is so high even a reasonable upper working middle class can’t afford for any treatment as the cost of simple delivery of a child is around one lakh rupees and a unit of a blood transfusion costing rupees ten thousands (In case, blood will be provided by patients relatives). This seems that Indian state has completely withdrawn from providing any health care infrastructure in any poor and lower middle class population having Muslim minority population including Okhla region of Delhi.
These senior AMU alumni argue that there are enough UP Government Irrigation Department land available in the neighborhood of Okhla that is not utilized for any Irrigation related works now and if Government of India is sincere then the health ministry can write a letter to UP Government to transfer this land for creating these vital health care infrastructure services for the urban poor population of this area.
They have also taken upon themselves the responsibility to further pressurize the government of the day in UP to transfer the land to the ministry of health once the health ministry will write a formal letter to the government of UP with full plan of utilization of lands and after prior approval for the purpose of creating health care infrastructure.
They argue that the majority of the population of the Okhla region is from the poor and lower middle class rural migrants from UP and there is no reason for denying this legitimate demands by the Central Government in Delhi to provide these basic facilities for the poor migrants population of the UP.
In the meeting Union Health Secretary directed the join secretary of ministry of health Delhi government to provide the complete report about the publicly funded health care infrastructures in the Okhla region and ready to provide all support through recently approved National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) by union cabinet and he will write a letter to Delhi Health secretary to create all health care infrastructure on the line of many well funded program.
According to Parwez, Union Health secretary has taken a strong view to eliminate all institutional bias for the policy making within his ministry and he has assured to provide all copy of communications with us to do the proper follow-ups at the different levels of the decision making to expedite the implementation.
Union health secretary has also assured them that they will also write a letter and speak with the health secretary Government of Delhi to write a letter for transfer of available agriculture land from UP Government so that proper capacity planning can be possible for all health care infrastructures and requested AMU Alumni to speak with UP Government also so that transfer of land will be expedited for the creation of well equipped health care infrastructure in the Okhla region.