Gurgaon: Ramesh Prasad’s wife, 34-year-old Kamla, had been showing influenza-like illness (ILI) symptoms for 20 days. He brought her to the Sector 10 district hospital at night, hoping to get a specialist to see her.Prasad, a resident of Basai, works in a shop in Sadar Bazar and Kamla is a homemaker. Their first choice would have been a civil hospital – run by the govt in every district, forming the backbone of the public healthcare system.But what was once Gurgaon’s Civil Hospital, spread across 7.73 acres, has now been reduced to a haphazard parking lot filled with vehicles from Sadar Bazar and construction debris. Broken concrete slabs and twisted metal lie scattered across the open ground. Stray dogs forage between parked vehicles while vendors informally occupy corners of the site during the day.Prasad and his family cannot afford private treatment and the Sector 10 hospital is the closest facility resembling a civil hospital.But Kamla was referred to Delhi.“They said there were no beds. We reached at night… there was no one to register the patient. The doctor treated my wife but told us to go to Safdarjung Hospital as it might be pneumonia and other lung disease combined,” he said.In 2021, Gurgaon’s district civil hospital at Civil Lines was demolished after repeated structural failures. Between 2015 and 2016, at least six incidents of roof collapse were reported at the hospital, including in the maternity ward and ICU. The public works department later recommended complete demolition.The 200-bed facility was pulled down after Haryana govt announced plans to replace it with a new govt hospital. Four years on, construction has not begun, while pressure on the Sector 10 govt hospital continues to mount. Services from Civil Lines were shifted there gradually over a year.Originally a 100-bed facility, Sector 10 hospital was never meant to serve a city of this size. Today, it is effectively accommodating two hospitals in one.The civil hospital project was first announced in the 2019 state budget as a 400-bed facility and later expanded to 750 beds. The proposal eventually has settled on a phased 400+200-bed model. “After examining the proposal, we did not find any objections with the layout. The file was resubmitted to proceed with the 400-bed hospital plan, which also includes provision for adding another 200 beds in the next phase,” Gurgaon chief medical officer Dr Lokveer Singh told TOI.A timeline in limboIn Jan 2025, the state govt announced a revised construction timeline for the hospital, saying work would begin by May after the bidding process, with central public works department as the executing agency. Architectural drawings proposed a multi-block complex including a main hospital tower, a TB ward block, parking and residential facilities, a mortuary and engineering services block.The project was pitched as a comprehensive district hospital with CT-MRI facilities, oncology and radiology departments and specialised laboratories. In Aug 2024, the state govt approved Rs 989.8 crore for the project and released Rs 60 crore as the first instalment. But the timeline never translated into work on the ground.Earlier, Haryana govt had also approved an increase in the floor area ratio (FAR) of the proposed hospital building in Civil Lines to accommodate higher capacity. Health department officials had said construction could begin after design approval, with tentative timelines pointing to the end of 2025. That too did not happen.Sec 10 hosp stretched thinDoctors at the Sector 10 govt hospital said the facility handles up to 3,000 OPD patients a day during peak seasons. Gurgaon still has no burn ward in the govt health system, forcing even moderate burn cases to be referred out, often to Delhi. There is also no dedicated dengue ward, and seasonal disease surges repeatedly collide with the same shortage of beds and isolation facilities. Ultrasound services at the hospital shut after 3pm every day. During a TOI visit, several patients were seen returning without scans after waiting hours. In practical terms, Gurgaon today has fewer govt hospital beds than it did five years ago. Another 100-bed block was sanctioned in 2020 on the Sector 10 hospital premises, but construction stalled after the design was altered mid-way from four floors to five without corresponding financial approvals. The building remains incomplete. Doctors said even a partial handover would ease pressure. “Referrals have increased and departments function with limited depth as specialists rotate across district facilities and even to other districts. We plan to get a handover of the new block by March 2027,” Dr Singh said.Patients feel the strainSunita Yadav, who brought her father to see an orthopaedics consultant, said the crowding was evident.“We waited nearly two hours before seeing a doctor. There is just no space. The doctors are doing their best, but everyone is overloaded,” she said.Hospital data at Sector 10 showed that while there are about 106 doctors for roughly 130 functional beds, the mismatch between patient load, staffing and infrastructure remains severe.Amitesh Singh, who brought his 62-year-old mother for a follow-up after fracture surgery, said even routine visits have become exhausting.“There was already a long line outside orthopaedics when we arrived. Elderly patients have nowhere to sit and attendants stand for hours. Treatment happens, but the system is stretched,” he said. Former Haryana director of health services DB Saharan said the problem has been years in the making.“The city has grown, but public healthcare has not. Sector 10 was never meant to function as the main civil hospital. Gurgaon demolished its only civil hospital. The replacement is not built. And the one govt hospital that remains is packed every day,” he said.
