The public healthcare systems of Punjab and Haryana have received a much-needed jolt from the Punjab and Haryana High Court. It has directed both states to ensure CT scan and MRI machines, along with ICU facilities, in every district hospital. The court’s intervention exposes the widening gap between healthcare promises and healthcare delivery. During the hearings, Punjab informed the court that MRI facilities were available in only six of its 23 districts, while more than 2,000 posts of General Medical Officers and hundreds of specialist positions remained vacant. Several district hospitals still lacked functional ICUs. Haryana, too, was asked to explain gaps in diagnostic and critical-care facilities. These shortages explain why costly medical equipment in many government hospitals often lies unused or underutilised.
The HC rightly observed that access to CT scans, MRIs and ICUs was no longer a luxury but a basic healthcare necessity. It also underlined that governments could not rely indefinitely on outsourcing or referral systems in place of functional district-level infrastructure. Public healthcare system suffers not merely from lack of procurement, but from procurement without planning. MRI machines remain uninstalled because technicians are unavailable. Ventilators gather dust because maintenance contracts lapse. Diagnostic services are outsourced because radiologists and biomedical engineers are absent. Repeated audit reports have shown equipment worth crores lying idle for months or even years.
The consequences are severe. Every dysfunctional CT scanner delays diagnosis for accident victims, cancer patients and stroke sufferers. Every vacant specialist post pushes families towards expensive private hospitals. Rural patients often travel long distances only to discover that machines are non-functional or there is no staff to operate them. Installing machines alone will not cure the crisis. Public hospitals need doctors, technicians and accountability as urgently as they need equipment. Healthcare cannot be measured by machines purchased, but by patients treated in time.
