Patients say facing years-long wait at Delhi govt hospitals for routine tests

Such is the patient load at government hospitals in the Capital that the average waiting time for certain tests can be three to four years

Madhuri Kumari, 42, on November 23, 2022, was at her home in east Delhi’s Trilokpuri when she suddenly heard her 12-year-old son Sooraj scream out in pain. She ran to see what was wrong, and discovered that Sooraj had fallen down the stairs. The mother-son duo rushed to Lok Nayak hospital, where emergency staff advised an x-ray. After standing in line at the out-patient department (OPD) counter for over an hour, Kumari was told that the first available date for an x-ray was December 2, 2023.
At first, I thought it was a typing error and went back to the counter to check, but I was told that the earliest slot for my son’s tests was indeed in December 2023. When I requested them for an earlier date, they told me that this was not an emergency case and if I was in a hurry, I could get the tests done privately,” Kumari said.

Kumari and her son share a plight with anyone who needs to rely on government-run hospitals, where fees are a fraction of private establishments, drawing in a flood of patients that the limited resources of these government facilities are incapable of handling.

In December, HT had reported the case of Gulam Mahabub, 49, who moved the Delhi high court against Lok Nayak Hospital after he was allotted a date in July 2024 for an MRI required prior to an “urgent surgery”. After the court intervened, Mahabub’s surgery was scheduled for January this year.