Taking a cue from the popularity of “mohalla clinics” in Delhi, the Gujarat Health Department has decided to replicate the concept of “doctors reaching out to the patients’ doorsteps” and earmarked Rs 500 crore to set up such medical facilities in four major cities of the state — Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Rajkot and Surat. An initiative by the AAP-led government in Delhi, mohalla clinics serve as primary healthcare centres, equipped to conduct over 200 tests and initial diagnosis. In Gujarat, government officials said, these clinics would be equivalent to community health centres (CHCs) and each facility would have around 30-bed capacity with routine and emergency care in surgery, medicine, obstetrics and gynaecology, paediatrics, dental and other services. The state BJP government would likely declare this scheme before Diwali — almost a year before the Assembly elections in 2017. The clinics would likely become functional in six to eight months, the sources revealed. According to officials in the Health Department, this scheme was recently proposed to the Gujarat government by the department in its “draft of new schemes and changes to be implemented before the Assembly elections”. Such a draft of suggestions have been sought from each department of the government. With the scheme already generating a positive response in Delhi, it hardly took “much deliberations by the state government” before Chief Minister Vijay Rupani gave his nod to the proposal. “Also, Rupani’s predecessor Anandiben Patel, who focussed on healthcare during her tenure, had launched several new schemes covering the masses. Thus, the state government was seeking something different from what has been already existing in the state and that could click with the masses,” revealed a senior health official. Health commissioner J P Gupta said: “At present, there is no such concept of CHCs in urban areas. At the same time, urban health centres (UHCs) lack indoor capacity. Thus, these clinics have been planned to not only reach out to the public, but also serve as an intermediary network so that people do not have to travel for health care facilities.” In this scheme too, the state government’s focus would be on 24X7 care of mother and child. For instance, for health services like delivery, a mother has to approach the district hospital and college, but with these clinics, the pregnant woman could be provided these services closer to her doorsteps. The scheme would take off in major municipal corporations of Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Rajkot and Surat. For instance, the estimated number of clinics proposed in Ahmedabad was nearly 12. These would be in city’s peripheral areas with freshly recruited staff with specialists.
