New Delhi: Almost 12 hours after issuing a notification shutting down the All India Institute of Medical Sciences for half a day till 2:30 pm on January 22 to mark the pran pratishtha of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya, the institute reversed its decision today morning.
A conservative estimate from The Wire had suggested that more than 13,000 OPD appointments and more than 700 routine surgeries would have been hit due to this shutdown, along with lab and investigation services.
Forced on the defensive after the massive outrage over the decision that would have hit patients who wait for months to get these appointments, AIIMS issued two notifications on Sunday morning marked as ‘most immediate’. The notifications said the OPD would remain open to all patients who had an appointment on that date. The second notification further clarified that “all clinical services” including the OPD would be functional. The planned surgeries and lab investigations would not be hit.
Earlier, the January 21 notification issued by AIIMS’s administrative officer read, “It is notified for information of all the employees that the institute will remain half-a-day closed till 14.30 hours on 22.02.2024.” The official attributed it to the declaration of “half holiday” by the Government of India as “Ram Lalla Pran Pratistha at Ayodhya will be celebrated across India”. The notification said the emergency and critical care department will remain functional.
All other Union government-run hospitals in Delhi – Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, Safdarjung Hospital and Lady Hardinge Hospital – had issued similar notifications, albeit with some riders. Their notifications meant that OPD services would be affected, though partially; so would diagnostic services. All planned surgeries had also been put on hold in these hospitals. There has been no revision in the notifications of these hospitals till the time of updating this article, at 12:20 pm on January 21.
Notifications issued by top Delhi hospitals, Lady Hardinge, RML, Safdarjung and AIIMS.
The Wire did a back-of-the-envelope calculation of how many patients would be affected assuming hospitals assuming the hospitals offer these services at least in 320 days a year, minus the weekends and gazetted holidays.
These estimates suggest that more than 32,000 people would miss their OPD appointments on Monday at AIIMS, Safdarjung Hospital, Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital and Lady Hardinge hospital.
‘January 22 a pious day’: IMA
The Indian Medical Association (IMA) president said the organisation neither supports nor opposes this decision.
“What can we say…It’s a government policy…It is a very pious day. Whole country is happy that Ram Mandir has been made,” IMA national president Sharad Aggarwal told The Wire on January 21 in response to its queries.
“I don’t think people will suffer much. I pray for that, and also private hospital services can be taken,” he added and said he would give benefit of doubt to the government for this decision when asked what it IMA was concerned about patients’ woes.
‘No civilised country’
“It is cruel [for patients],” an AIIMS professor had said on the condition of anonymity as the person was not authorised to speak to the media.
“In no civilised country this can be allowed to happen. We haven’t seen anything like this before,” the professor added.
The professor explained on gazetted holidays and weekends these services are not scheduled itself in the first place, so patients don’t suffer sudden and mass cancellations like it has happened this time.
In hospitals like AIIMS, people, who come from far flung areas of the country and neighbouring ones queue up from early in the morning for registration, and often have to wait for months to finally get an appointment to see a doctor.
The Ram Manohar Lohia hospital notification said all services will remain closed till 2.30 pm but OPD registrations would start at 1.30 pm. But for how long would it continue and how many appointments would be given was not clear.
The Vardhman Mahavir Medical College associated with Safdarjung hospital issued a clarification to its earlier notification saying OPD registration will happen from 8 am to 10 am, instead of what would usually be 8.30 am to 11.30 am. A similar note was put out by Lady Hardinge hospital too.
Surgeries to take a hit as well
From all the notifications, it was clear that planned surgeries for Monday would not be conducted. A back of the envelope calculation had suggested that an estimated 1,200 surgeries would be delayed in three major hospitals of Delhi that are run by the Union government – AIIMS, Safdarjung Hospital and Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital. While in AIIMS surgeries will now happen, there is no revision in notifications from the other three hospitals.
Some of these surgeries are minor while others are major and complicated ones. Reports suggest the wait time for these surgeries can range from as many as two to four years. Patients dying, while they are kept waiting by these hospitals for surgeries due to overcrowding, is no secret.
And at this moment, it is not clear now as to when these surgeries, which wouldn’t be done on Monday, would find a date and time again and how soon.
Not just surgeries and OPD appointments, even lab investigations are going to suffer. Except for Safdarjung Hospital, which said lab and radiological services would be available till the truncated time of 11.30 am, neither of the other two hospitals –Ram Manohar Lohia hospital and Lady Hardinge College Hospital – said anything of this sort.
People questioning the amount of state attention to a religious function versus other essential duties of the state has drawn attention from some in the Opposition.
A fortnight ago, the deputy chief minister of Bihar, RJD’s Tejashwai Yadav while speaking in Madhubani, had asked, “If you fall ill, where do you go? Temple or hospital?” He was reported to have had said that “we are not anti-temple. My mother celebrates Chhath from the time when Modi ji did not even know about Chhath.”
Yadav added, “Lord Shri Ram wanted to see his people happy. He said that people get happiness by removing poverty and providing employment. Improvement in education and health system will lead to all-round development of the state.”
But the BJP had outraged at even the mention of the sick needing a hospital and given it a communal tone. Union minister of rural development and panchayati raj, Giriraj Singh posed a query about why Yadav is “not turning Haj Bhawan into a hospital.”
Note: This article was updated after AIIMS issued a new notification saying it would remain open on January 22.
