For six years, the Madhya Pradesh government has staffed a hospital that does not exist. Officials sanctioned a 100-bed civil hospital for Indore’s Khajrana area in June 2020. The land has still not been handed over, and no construction has begun, The Indian Express reported.
Yet the appointments never stopped. The state has filled 87 sanctioned posts for the hospital, including specialist doctors, medical officers, staff nurses, lab technicians and pharmacists. The latest appointment, a laboratory technician, came just last month.
A Hospital That Exists Only on Paper
Khajrana and its surrounding colonies have a population of more than 3 lakh people. The area has no secondary care facility of its own. Residents depend on already stretched hospitals elsewhere in Indore.
Indore Chief Medical and Health Officer Dr Madhav Hasani confirmed that land has been allotted to the health department but not physically handed over. “A 100-bed civil hospital has been sanctioned for Khajrana, along with the necessary manpower. Land has been allocated to us, but we have not yet received physical possession of it,” Hasani told The Indian Express.
Madhya Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Rajendra Shukla said the project remains on the government’s books despite the lack of progress on the ground. “Work could not start due to the land not being available,” Shukla said, per The Indian Express. He also said an urban primary health centre originally operated at the site before it was upgraded on paper, first to a 50-bed civil hospital and later to the current 100-bed plan. [SOURCE NAME + URL NEEDED]
Staff Parked at Other Facilities
The appointed staff have not sat idle. Around 80 of them are currently working at Sanjeevani Clinics, PC Sethi Hospital, and Hukumchand Hospital.
Mukhyamantri Sanjeevani Clinics are part of the state’s urban primary healthcare push, offering free consultations, diagnostic tests and some medicines. Indore has launched around 85 such clinics over the past two-and-a-half years, out of 783 sanctioned statewide.
The Bigger Picture
Indore’s existing healthcare infrastructure is already under strain. Outside its medical colleges, the district has 1,240 sanctioned hospital beds: 300 at the District Hospital, 520 across eight civil hospitals, 240 across eight Community Health Centres, and 180 across 30 Primary Health Centres, per district health data cited by The Indian Express.
Against a district population of nearly 35 lakh, that works out to under 0.4 beds per 1,000 people, well below the National Health Policy’s target of two beds per 1,000. Under Indian Public Health Standards, each Community Health Centre is meant to serve no more than 1.2 lakh people, but Indore’s population is more than three times what its eight centres are designed to handle.
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