Trauma cases continue to face referrals, patients suffer
By: Ahmad Shabir
Anantnag: In 1997 the then government sanctioned an emergency hospital to the highway township Qazigund. The purpose of the construction of the hospital on national highway was to provide immediate treatment to the trauma cases.
However, more than a decade after the hospital was made operational, the facility seems to have failed the purpose as the trauma cases brought to the hospital continue to be referred to other healthcare facilities.
Constructed at the cost of Rs 13 crore, the hospital was inaugurated with much fanfare in 2010 by the then chief minister Omar Abdullah.
However sources in the hospital and local residents told Precious Kashmir that the hospital continues to remain devoid of basic facilities required to handle trauma cases.
For instance, the hospital does not have CT scan facility available.
“Any trauma case needs to undergo CT before being treated but in the absence of the equipment doctors simply refer the patients either to Anantnag or Srinagar which delays their treatment,” a source in the hospital said.
He said that trauma hospital without CT scan facility is a joke in the name of healthcare. Similarly the hospital, according to the source, has decades old conventional X ray machine. “Being a trauma hospital authorities should have installed digital X-ray plant in the hospital. Since there is no accuracy in the X-ray films done on old conventional X-ray machine , doctors are again left with no option but to refer the patients either to private diagnostic centers or other hospitals,” the source said.
USG machine in the hospital, according to insiders, is also too old and often develops snags as a result of which patients have to get their USGs done at private centers.
A local resident, Farooq Ahmad said that the hospital lost its purpose after the authorities started all the specialities there.
“It was trauma hospital and should have been meant for that only but authorities started all the specialities at the healthcare facility soon after it was made functional,” Ahmad said.
The hospital is now one of the overcrowded hospitals in the district recording over 500 patients in OPD every day.
The hospital, according to insiders also does not have a blood bank which is very important for a trauma hospital.
A source said that the authorities have now granted registration to the blood storage unit for the hospital.
A doctor posted in the hospital said that they have sent a requisition for the CT scan.
“Sanction of CT scan for the hospital is in process and is expected to arrive in few month only,” the doctor said.
He also admitted that X-ray machine in the hospital is decades old conventional one and needs to be replaced by modern digital machine.
Doctor said that hospital also needs a high-end USG machine so that patients don’t have to suffer again and again.
