On August 2, an RTI reply revealed that contrary to the promises made by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, no new hospitals were constructed by the government of Delhi.
Twitter user Amit Kumar shared a reply to the RTI application that he had filed with the Health Department of the AAP-led Delhi government to find out how many hospitals the Delhi government has built between July 1, 2021, and July 1, 2022. The RTI was filed to see if the promise Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal had made about constructing seven hospitals in October last year was fulfilled or not.
I had filed an RTI to check the claim of @ArvindKejriwal, who said that 7 hospitals have been constructed in last six months.
— Amit Kumar (@AMIT_GUJJU) August 2, 2022
RTI reveals 0 (ZERO) hospitals have been built in last six months.👏👏 pic.twitter.com/tovW9ab632
Amit had asked four questions in his RTI application. The first question was about the new hospitals constructed by AAP Government in Delhi between July 1, 2021, to July 2, 2022. In the reply, the Public Information Officer of the Directorate General of Health Services said that no hospitals were constructed in Delhi from July 1, 2021, to July 1, 2022, by the Delhi Government.
There were three other questions asked by Amit about the new beds added by the AAP-led government in Delhi Government hospitals, ambulances added in Delhi State Govt hospitals by the Kejriwal-led government and the number of patients treated in Delhi Mohalla Clinics during the same period. These questions were further forwarded by the Directorate General of Health Services to the concerning departments for replies.
Speaking to OpIndia, Amit said, “I haven’t seen a politician lying this blatantly and not been fact-checked. Not one journalist exposes him. Every promise he made is unfulfilled, but you don’t see anyone highlighting his failures.”
He added, “So I have decided to expose all his lies because apparently, he has bought all the fact checkers and a majority of journalists through ads in their channels.”
CM Kejriwal had promised seven hospitals
In October 2021, CM Kejriwal at an event after laying the foundation stone of a government hospital that was supposed to be built in Shalimar Bagh, said that the government of Delhi was going to build seven new hospitals with a total capacity of 6800 beds. Those hospitals were supposed to be completed in six months.
A Times Now report from February 2022 suggested that the work was delayed and the hospitals were supposed to be completed by mid-2022. The report said that the first hospital would be completed by June and the rest six by September. We could not find any reports of a hospital being inaugurated by the Delhi government in June.
More ambulances were scrapped compared to new ambulances added by Delhi Government
In June 2022, another RTI filed by Gujarati activist Sujit Patel revealed from 2014 to April 2022, the Kejriwal government did not purchase a single ‘patient transport ambulance’ of the kind that can take patients to hospitals. The Kejriwal government had sold nine such patient transport ambulances in the scrap at a price of Rs 23,659 per ambulance during the same period.
From 2014 to April 2022, the Kejriwal government procured a total of 10 ‘Advanced Life Support Ambulances’, which have oxygen, ICUs, and ECG facilities to treat patients in ambulances. During the same period, the Kejriwal government had sold a total of 20 advanced life support ambulances for scrap at a price of Rs 75,246/- per ambulance.
This showed that the number of ambulances by the Health Department of the Government of Delhi had not increased after 2014. In fact, there was a major reduction in the number.
