Private hospitals all across the state of Rajasthan have gone on a strike, in order to showcase their opposition for the Right to Health Bill introduced by the state government. While on the one hand, the hospitals are asking the Ashok Gehlot-led government to take the bill back, the government is hell-bent to continue with it, on the other. The situation is such that in the private hospitals of the state, even the emergency patients are being sent back, and thousands of operations have been postponed.
With this, as the pressure on the government hospitals has hiked, only ‘crucial’ operations are taking place here as well. In the private hospitals of Jaipur, 50-60 thousand patients arrive at the OPDs daily, out of whom 16 thousand are admitted every day. At the same time, more than 1000 operations take place daily and 450 patients are admitted to the ICU. But with this strike, the treatment of 80 percent of the patients has been affected.
Across government hospitals too, due to the strike of residents, OPDs and IPDs have been affected. Due to this unavailability of treatment across hospitals in Rajasthan, patients are now turning towards neighbouring states and their hospitals to get treated. Earlier, patients from Haryana, MP and Punjab used to visit Rajasthan for treatment, and now, the opposite is taking place. While patients from Banswara, Pratapgarh, Dungarpur, Sirohi, Jalore, Rajsamand, Udaipur, and Chittorgarh are going to Gujarat, those from Alwar, Bhiwadi, and Bharatpur are heading towards Noida and Gurugram.
Patients from Sri Ganganagar, Hanumangarh, Jhunjhunu, Sikar, Bikaner, and Churu have been forced to go to Haryana and Punjab.
