Rural health system in state has collapsed: Manpreet

Tuesday, 30/06/2015

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MOGA: People’s Party of Punjab (PPP) chief Manpreet Singh Badal on Monday said the entire system of primary health centres across the state has collapsed under the Parkash Singh Badal-led government, even as people from the rural areas in Punjab have been suffering from cancer and hepatitis-C for the last several years.

People’s Party of Punjab chief Manpreet Singh Badal during a press conference in Moga on Monday.

Manpreet claimed that his party conducted a survey in Baghapurana sub-division on Monday to know about the real facts of the health services in rural areas and found that villages like Mari Mustafa, Thathi Bhai, Smalsar and Sekha Kalan have shockingly been without power for the last 21 years.

Addressing a news conference here, Manpreet said, “As per our survey, the Moga civil surgeon has also recommended the closure of health centres in these villages in the wake of ‘criminal apathy’ of the government.”

He said the irony was that these health centres had come into news last year as well when an alarming number of deaths due to hepatitis was reported in Mari Mustafa village.

“However, the problem was that like the chronically sick Akali government, this health centre itself had been sick and the health officials had lost all hope to revive it,” said Manpreet.

The PPP chief said while this was not an isolated case, Punjab represented a failed state at the macro level.

“The chief minster should himself visit this health centres to see the collapse of governance under his leadership. The pitiable condition of the primary health centres in a way is the reflection of the pathetic state of governance as the state government has failed to provide adequate funds, while the chief minister keeps on splurging money under his Sangat Darshan programmes for which there is no accountability,” said Manpreet.

“The issue here is not about the condition of one health centre. Recently there have been reports of electricity having been disconnected to waterworks in the rural areas of Ferozepur and that too in the cancer prone belt. The situation is rooted in total failure of the Akali government,” he added.

The former Punjab finance minister warned that if the government failed to provide basic infrastructure to the residents of Punjab, the PPP workers would start state-wide campaign against it.

The PPP chief also drew the attention of the CM to the observation of a senior army officer at Ferozepur who talked of pitiable condition of health and education services in the state and asked the chief minister as to why this perception about lack of governance had been deepening.