By: Ahmad Shabir
Anantnag: The most populated and remotely located village in medical block Bijbehara has no round-the-clock hospital, forcing the patients to travel 25 kms to seek treatment at Medical College Anantnag in emergency.
The X-ray plant and Echocardiography machines installed in the hospital years ago continue to gather dust as the hospital has no technician available to operate them.
The Primary Health Center in the village was sanctioned decades ago with the aim to provide healthcare facilities to the village.
Though the residents of village being most populated both at Tehsil and constituency level have been demanding the hospital being made functional round-the-clock but authorities seem to be turning deaf ear to their demand.
A delegation of villagers told Precious Kashmir that in case of medical emergencies during night hours, they have to rush to SDH Bijbehara or GMC Anantnag, more than twenty kms away.
“The village being remotely located and hugely populous should have a round-the-clock hospital but unfortunately, the authorities never bothered to make this decades PHC functional day and night. Most often there are emergency cases during night hours and it takes lot of time to take them to other hospitals which delays their treatment by nearly an hour,” the residents complained.
A resident questioned the wisdom of authorities of not making this hospital functional round-the-clock.
“Khiram is significant from many aspects mainly population. This village decides the fate of candidates in elections for being highly populated. One wonders if this village does deserve a round the clock healthcare facility then which other areas deserves,” a resident, Ajaz Ahmad questioned.
“Population and location is the criteria for round the clock health facilities and Khiram has both,” he said.
Residents rued that the X-ray plant and ECG machines in the hospital continue to remain non-functional since their installation.
The hospital, they said, even does not have a man power to run these machines thus making the patients suffer.
“Though a couple of doctors and some para-medics posted in the hospital put up all their efforts but what can they do when authorities have not deputed trained technicians to run these machines,” the residents complained.
A local resident, Abdul Rashid said that visiting this hospital even during day time serves little purpose as many patients again have to go to other hospitals or private clinics for X ray or ECG advised by the doctors.
“This is irony that two important machines are rusting in the hospital for want of man power,” said the resident.
Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Anantnag, Dr Mukhtar admitted that the machines in the hospital are not operational but added that he has directed the BMO to make an arrangement of the technician from the block, who can run these machines twice a week.
“We will also send a para-medic from the PHC for short training course and till he completes the training, a technician arranged by the BMO will be deputed to the hospital two days a week for the purpose,” CMO said.
He said that three posts of para-medics fell vacant at the PHC which created shortage of manpower. “Filling these posts is the job of the government,” CMO said.
