Editorial: From Healing to Looting – HP Govt Is Failing Its People!
2 min read
Ritanjali Hastir, 13 April, 2025, Shimla
The Himachal Pradesh Government headed by Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu seems to be on a dangerous path — prioritizing revenue extraction over public welfare. In a shocking and utterly insensitive move, the government plans to impose a registration fee on patients at IGMC, Shimla — a hospital already drowning in neglect, where human dignity is being traded for political optics.
While our elected MLAs enjoy a pay raise, the common man — broken by inflation, joblessness, and spiralling healthcare costs — is being asked to pay just to get registered at a government hospital. Let that sink in. The same government that cannot ensure a clean, safe and humane environment in its top medical Institution wants the sick and struggling to foot the bill. This isn’t governance — it is betrayal.
Cardiology wards at IGMC are a picture of systemic failure. Two patients, sometimes three, are forced to share a single bed. Infections loom large as seeping walls ooze dampness and mould spreads like some curse. Patients battling heart disease are now fighting bacterial and fungal infections too. Is this the “progressive governance” we were promised?
Instead of fixing the rot, the government is planning to monetize it. And not just at IGMC, this fee structure is being pushed across all government hospitals. For a state battling poverty and mountainous challenges, this is akin to taxing the dying.
Where is Accountability? Where is Humanity?
This move reeks of misplaced priorities. Before daring to charge even a rupee, the government must answer, ‘Why are our hospitals in shambles? Why are health workers overburdened. Why are patients lying in filth while ministers bask in privilege?’
Healthcare is not a commodity. It is a right. And when the State fails to provide it with dignity and fairness, it is not just a policy failure — it is moral bankruptcy.
