There are no nurses or doctors… 80% of the hospitals in the country have poor medical facilities, revealed in a government survey

New Delhi : The condition of government hospitals in India is very bad. A report has revealed that 80% of government hospitals do not even have basic facilities. The government itself has prepared this report. This report states that there is a huge shortage of doctors, nurses and necessary equipment in government hospitals. This report tells the condition of government hospitals under the ‘National Health Mission’ (NHM). NHM is an important scheme of the government under which district hospitals, community health centers, primary health centers and Ayushman Arogya centers across the country come. The report states that out of more than 2 lakh hospitals under NHM, only 40,451 have given their information to the government.

Information obtained through digital tools

The government had created a digital tool called ‘Indian Public Health Standard’ (IPHS) to collect information from hospitals. Through this tool, it was found that out of the 40,451 hospitals that provided information, only 8,089 hospitals met the standards of IPHS. That is, only these hospitals have basic facilities, doctors, nurses and equipment to treat patients. According to the report, 42% of the hospitals scored less than 50% on the standards of IPHS. The remaining 15,172 hospitals got marks between 50 to 80%. The government has made all this information public on the dashboard of IPHS.

That’s why the government prepared a report

A senior official of the Union Health Ministry said that this report has been prepared to find out what are the shortcomings in the hospitals. he/she said, ‘Our aim is to ensure that all government hospitals have basic facilities, equipment and doctors so that patients can get better treatment.’ The center’s goal is to make 70,000 government hospitals according to IPHS standards within 100 days of the formation of the new government. A senior official said, ‘We are giving full support to the states to improve the hospitals. Our aim is to improve the quality of treatment in government hospitals.’

Officers will conduct surprise inspection of hospitals

The official said that the government will also conduct surprise inspections of hospitals. This will ensure that the information given by the hospitals to the government is correct or not. Apart from IPHS, there is also ‘National Quality Assurance Standard’ (NQAS) which evaluates hospitals. NQAS looks at standards like availability of medicines, waste management, infection control and patients’ rights in hospitals.

Government is taking steps for better facilities

The official said that the NQAS evaluation of district hospitals, community health centers and primary health centers will be done as before. But, the evaluation of Ayushman Arogya Mandir will now be done virtually. Most of the Ayushman Arogya Mandirs come under NHM. The central government bears 60 percent of the expenses of the hospitals under NHM while the remaining 40% is borne by the state governments.