Only 4 govt neurosurgeons in Punjab, BJP’s Shwait Malik slams Bhagwant Mann govt

Amritsar. Road crashes kill nearly 13 people a day in Punjab, yet the state’s entire government health system has only four neurosurgeons, and not one of them works at a district or sub-divisional hospital, former BJP Punjab president Shwait Malik said on Friday.

All four are posted at government medical colleges in Patiala, Faridkot and Amritsar, he said. That leaves Punjab’s 23 district hospitals and 44 sub-divisional hospitals without a single neurosurgeon, while road accidents kill 4,759 people in the state every year.

Malik, a former Rajya Sabha MP, used the figures to attack the Bhagwant Mann-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government. He said the doctor shortage had exposed the “hollow publicity” around its ‘Sehat Kranti’ campaign.

Referring to a recent accident in Sangrur, Malik said, “Just days ago, victims of a tragic bus crash right near Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s residence in Sangrur had to be referred to Patiala due to the absence of a neurosurgeon, costing precious lives during the golden hour.”

He also went after the health minister. “Instead of fixing this emergency, Health Minister Dr Balbir Singh shockingly brushed aside neurosurgery facilities at district hospitals as ‘not feasible’,” Malik said.

The shortage goes beyond neurosurgery, he said. Citing the Union Health Ministry’s Health Dynamics of India 2024-25 report, Malik said 224 of the 268 specialist posts at Punjab’s 84 rural community health centres (CHCs), or 84%, are vacant. According to him, not one rural CHC in the state has its full strength of specialists, and district and sub-divisional hospitals are also short of a large number of doctors and specialists.

“While AAP wastes crores on self-promoting advertisements and Mohalla Clinics, secondary and tertiary healthcare has collapsed,” he said.

Malik demanded that the Mann government fill every vacant post of doctors, specialists and super-specialists within a fixed deadline. He also asked the government to release a White Paper on its health budget and on how much it has spent on advertisements.