Lieutenant Governor Of Delhi, VK Saxena, Gives Nod To Private Vendors For Diagnostic Testing In Mohalla Clinics

 L-G VK Saxena has agreed to the Delhi government decision to outsource diagnostic and lab services to government hospitals to three private players, as a fait accompli presented to him.

The AAP government via Cabinet Decision has decided to outsource/privatise diagnostic services in government health facilities viz. hospitals, dispensaries, polyclinics and health camps, including PUHCs on July 28, 2022. The Cabinet decision to this effect has also selected three private vendors for providing such services, in the above mentioned government facilities and also in the Mohalla Clinics. The same was presented to the L-G for concurrence after a lapse of four and a half months on December 12, 2022.

As per sources, due to not taking a timely decision and not sending the pertinent files to the L-G office for concurrence, AAP and its ministers indulged in characteristic gimmickry. Even while no decision had been taken, they kept announcing things in the media and to avoid embarrassment, after sending the file to L-G on December 12, 2022, Sisodia wrote a letter to L-G on December 24, 2022, in just 8 working days, requesting clearance of the file.

The L-G, while concurring to the decision, has noted that, doing so "is prima facie admission that government hospitals/facilities run by the state government have failed on the parameters of something as basic as pathological and diagnostic testing.

The L-G said, "The ideal way forward in this regard would have been to strengthen and augment capacities of the government hospitals/facilities to the extent, that they became enabled to provide labs /diagnostic services to the mohalla clinics, instead of the other way around as is being proposed through the instant Cabinet decision."