To The President BJP Chandigarh unit Re; Suggestions on the Draft Master plan 2031 AD Dear Mr Tandon Medicos Legal Action Group is a Registered Trust formed by few doctors from all over the Country to look after interests and welfare of MBBS doctors and take legal action where needed. The trust works to create and spread awareness in the medical profession and the public about medicolegal issues through various means, for removal of quackery, for the diffusion of useful knowledge on matters related to health specially with training and working of medical personnel and to liaison and advocate with Government and its agencies including MCI, MOHFW, State Governments on issues related to MBBS doctors their training , their service matters and overall welfare. We have reviewed the Draft Master plan 2031 as displayed on Chandigarh Administration Website. Our attention has been specifically drawn towards section on Social Infrastructure specially regarding healthcare facilities. Our views and suggestions on the matter were given to the committee and personal representation also made. The suggestions / objections are; 1) It is unfortunate that 67 yrs post independence we are still living in socialist era. The Master Plan of this “well planned” city was envisaged amateurishly like a public Sector township with Type 1-7 accommodations for officers of different grades, hospital , few dispensaries, couple of schools and a job done. It is assumed that everyone is a Government servant, and all services to be provided will suffice with Govt infrastructure. 2) Despite being touted as a well planned city, Mohali a satellite township of Chandigarh has overtaken Chandigarh in Healthcare facilities specially in Private sector. Reason for this is vision of authorities incharge of Mohali. Chandigarh did not consider private sector health care facilities contribution of any consequence and hence ignored it earlier and even in this Draft plan. 3) The idea that PGIMER along with other Govt facilities is sufficient to cater to medical needs of Chandigarh is flawed. PGIMER in 2012-2013 had 1753773 OPD patients of which 651435 were new. Obviously in a city of 1200000 people this figure is incongruous. These patients were not from Chandigarh. Unfortunately since statistics to this effect is not available we assume that vast majority of Patients coming to PGIMER and now to GMCH Sector 32 are not residents of Chandigarh. These are patients from far off places who come and camp in these hospitals seeking better treatment. Fact is PGIMER is no longer utilized by residents of Chandigarh due to its excess load for any routine medical, surgical problems. 4) Under RTI we have information that in 2012 PGIMER conducted 4983 deliveries whereas private nursing homes conducted 2702 deliveries in Chandigarh. Besides this 1578 deliveries were conducted at home presumably by Dais. This number at PGIMER is despite the fact as already highlighted that PGIMER caters predominantly to outstation patient only. Hence many deliveries shown conducted in PGIMER will not belong to Chandigarh. Despite this UT administration has so far auctioned only 3 nursing home sites to date and a few nursing homes which were running in residential area manage to provided services of limited nature due to tight controls despite paying conversion charges as well as annual charges. 5) Going through the draft Master plan we find a 5 line paragraph 9.3.2.1 which refers to what is planned vis a vis private healthcare facilities. No coherent path forward is mentioned. 6) There are 200 plus clinics running in Chandigarh by both allopathic and ayurvedic / homeopathic practitioners. Chandigarh pollution Control Board has a list of Biomedical waste generators which is grossly incomplete but still will give an idea of the numbers involved. Though some of them see 70-80 pts a day, even if we average only 10 patient per day per practitioner this figure comes to 2000 patients per day or 730000 patient visits per year which is substantial. Despite this phenomenal number , the services of private healthcare establishments ; clinics, nursing homes and hospitals have been totally ignored in draft masterplan. 7) There are a number of issues which plague the healthcare establishments of the city which need to be addressed if proper need based planning is envisioned. a. Need to identify and develop specific showrooms in markets of all sectors as clinics. These SCO / SCFs should be auctioned for specific purpose and no change of use should be permitted to speculators. These should also not be auctioned as nursing homes to prevent misuse as hotel / guest house in garb of nursing home. b. Need to develop parking facilities in residential areas around parks in all sectors specially near any professionals establishment like advocates office, or a doctors clinic. c. Need based relaxations in building byelaws to nursing homes in residential premises which have been converted from residential plot in accordance with policy of UT Administration. d. Regular auction of proper nursing home sites which are already identified in sector 33,39, 44 and 46. For some reason no auction has taken place of these for past many years. e. Identify 2-4 kanal plots for private hospitals in Chandigarh. f. Differentiate and categorize healthcare establishments in city into two categories in masterplan itself. 1) Hospitals providing 24 hr emergency services 2) Clinics & Nursing Homes which provide limited specialty based professional services. Given the rigid building byelaws and controls it is not feasible for nursing homes and clinics in Chandigarh to provide infrastructure required for multispeciality emergency 24 hr services. Since most of these are single doctor / couple run establishments 24 hr, 365 days availability is impossible for these establishments. Clear official information of where a resident of Chandigarh should approach in an emergency in Private Sector at odd hours needs publicity in this draft masterplan. 8) It is again highlighted that Government hospitals in the city are victim of their own excellence. Because they provide good services patients from far off places travel to Chandigarh to avail their services. This overloads the hospitals with 2-3 patients having to share a bed as has already appeared in news items over the years. 9) Besides this we request Govt to reconsider the issue of height of residential buildings in Chandigarh. We suggest that all residential buildings be permitted one more storey and raise height of building beyond current limit if they provide stilt parking in at least 50% of ground floor. This will provide parking facility for vehicles which are woefully short in the city and no future plan to decongest this appears in the masterplan. We request a relook of the draft masterplan because it is woefully short of vision specially as regards private healthcare facilities in Chandigarh Regards Dr Neeraj Nagpal Convenor Medicos Legal Action Group Ex President IMA Chandigarh
Posted on: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 06:48:18 +0000
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