New Delhi, Mar 21 (NIE): Former state minister Eknath Khadse continued his criticism of the Devendra Fadnavis government on Tuesday, taking on the state’s medical education and public health departments for the ‘failing’ health infrastructure in semi-urban and rural regions of the state. During a discussion on Budget 2018-19 demands raised by the two departments in the Legislative Assembly on Tuesday, Khadse cited alleged instances where patients from his constituency had died owing to a lack of facilities and manpower in government-run hospitals. While firing barbs at Medical Education Minister Girish Mahajan, who is seen as a rival of his in the BJP, Khadse asked, “Who was responsible for these deaths?”

Blaming the government for playing with the lives of poor patients, Khadse said if the government could not improve infrastructure, it should lock down the public health care centres that lack basic facilities.
Earlier in the day, there was an uproar in the Lower House over the absence of both Mahajan as well as the medical education department’s junior minister for the debate on the budget demands pertaining to the department. An angry opposition repeatedly raised the issue regarding their absence, prompting Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to say that he regretted the absence of key ministers and that he had sought an explanation from them. The CM added that he was personally listening to the debate and taking notes.

Later, during the discussion, Khadse said two poor patients from his constituency in Jalgaon had died owing to the lack of infrastructure at hospitals. “Since the Jalgaon Civil Hospital does not even have an X-ray or an MRI imaging machine, both the patients were shifted to Mumbai’s state-run hospitals. But, they could not be admitted due to shortage of ventilators and beds in those hospitals too, and, unfortunately, they died.”

He said the Jalgaon Civil Hospital did not even have a doctor to perform post-mortems for two years. “People come to my home with dead bodies, asking what should be done with them. What should I do? What are we doing to rural healthcare? Primary health centres in my constituency have nothing that can treat patients,” Khadse said.
Taking a veiled dig at Mahajan, Khadse said the Jalgaon Civil Hospital’s administration was recently transferred to the Medical Education Department in order to attach a medical college with the hospital wing.

“But, this hospital lacks even basic medical equipment, and they claim they are going to have a medical college there. While the announcement of a college was made in the 2017-18 budget, even the next budget has made no financial provision for it,” he alleged. Saying that he had been repeatedly writing to Public Health Minister Deepak Sawant over the sorry state of a public health centre, Khadse added that there had been no progress on the same. “If you don’t want to do anything and trouble the poor, I suggest you lock the facility in my area first. Please tell me the date and time for closing it,” he said.

While Mahajan was absent for the debate, Sawant promised to fill up vacancies in health positions in Jalgaon district, while also claiming that the situation in Khadse’s district had been equally poor during the previous government’s regime. Blaming the staff shortage on frequent resignations of doctors assigned to work in the district, Sawant also promised an upgrade in medical facilities.

Khadse, once the second-ranking minister in the Fadnavis Cabinet, had to quit his ministerial position in June 2016, over allegations of impropriety in a land deal. While a judicial commission has investigated the allegations and submitted its findings, the government is yet to make it public. Anguished by the delay, Khadse has been constantly targeting the government.