The Delhi High Court on November 18 directed the Centre and the AAP government to treat as a representation a PIL seeking coordination of primary health centres (PHC) and mohalla clinics in the national capital.



The petition contended that coordination between the two would help provide better primary healthcare to all the residents of Delhi as the mohalla clinics on their own have been "unable to reach the desired outcome". A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice C Hari Shankar asked the Health Ministry and Delhi government's health department to treat the matter as a representation and take a decision in accordance with law, rules and regulations.

With the direction, the bench disposed of the plea which had alleged that the mohalla clinics of Delhi government did not have facilities for pregnant and lactating mothers. It had also claimed that for the mohalla clinics to be more effective, especially for pregnant and lactating mothers, there needs to be coordination between ASHA and Anganwaadi workers which has been lacking.

The plea had also said that mohalla clinics, designed to be a doorstep facility, referred tests to tertiary level hospitals like AIIMS and Safdarjung and sought that such clinics be instead linked to multi-speciality polyclinics for testing purposes. It had also sought increasing of the number of multi-speciality polyclinics and mohalla clinics so that healthcare was accessible from every part of the national capital.