BY: Sajid Raina
Bandipora: In absence of proper road connectivity, the doctors at the new Type Primary Health Centre (NTPHC), Ajas in north Kashmir’s Bandipora district had to carry a patient on their own shoulders to ensure the patient’s timely admission at another hospital in Sumbal area of the district.
According to wire service-Kashmir News observer (KNO), the video of incident which has appeared on social media – took place at Ajas, Bandipora where some doctors and medical staff of health centre carried a patient on their own shoulders to the nearby road where an “ambulance” of the hospital was waiting for the sick patient to carry her for treatment at Sumbal hospital.The incident exposed the tall claims of authorities having carried out development in the far-flung areas. It also illustrates how authorities have failed to provide basic facilities to people in remote parts of the Valley.While lashing out at the administration locals said, they are all witnesses to this incident when it was happened here. Why the authorities constructed a health Centre without proper road connectivity, they were asking the administration, whenever a patient is being shifted to another hospital for urgent treatment here they are facing the same problem due to lack of road connectivity to this health centre from main road, they saidThey alleged that numerous applications followed by reminders have been sent to district Development commissioner’s office and even the health authorities but nothing had been done so far.“We somehow manage during the day but we face a tough time during the night, when a critical patient is being transferred to another hospital,” said Salman Ahmed. “The road connectivity of health Centre was approved only on papers.”People who face medical emergencies have no other option than carrying patients on shoulders, because the ambulances can’t reach to the health centre, the government have not constructed a road for the health Centre, another local said.