Cancer hospital lying in neglect, AAP humiliating specialists, says Harsimrat Badal

Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Saturday asked Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to release funds immediately to repair diagnostic machines and appoint specialists at the Advanced Cancer Institute-cum-hospital here. Expressing shock that cancer patients were being turned away from the institute because mammography and OPG (teeth and jaw) test machines were not operational, she said that the AAP government was playing with patients’ lives.

“Early diagnosis is the key in cancer treatment and poor patients cannot afford to get expensive tests conducted at private hospitals. The callousness of the health department could be seen from the fact that even though the institute had an ultrasound machine, tests could not be carried out in the absence of a radiologist. The institute attracts patients from nearby districts and even from Rajasthan,” she said, adding that the rot lied within the AAP government.

She said that health minister Chetan Singh Jauramajra had earlier tried to deflect attention from his own government’s failures to release funds for the health sector by humiliating former vice-chancellor Dr Raj Bahadur publically. “Even as the AAP government does not release funds for hospitals, its ministers and legislators are harassing doctors in hospitals. This is demoralising doctors and specialists, many of whom have put in their papers,” she said.