Excelsior Correspondent
SHOPIAN, Oct 26: The main hospital in South Kashmir district of Shopian is lacking the proper infrastructure making the patients of this hilly and remote district suffer.
The district was carved out as separate from Pulwama in year 2007 but health services in the area have not improved much. “Nothing special was introduced in the health sector during these years to improve quality of treatment to the patients in the DH Shopian,” Sameer Ahmad Bhat, 25, a local said.
Bashir Ahmad Wani, whose son is admitted in the hospital from last four days alleged that there is no doctor to check the ENT patients and some important machines like USG were lying defunct for the past several months.
Wani also alleged that the doctors don’t visit wards during the night even after requests by attendants. “My son was in severe pain late last night and I requested doctors to visit the ward to examine him but nobody turned up,” he said.
Many other patients complained that the facilities at the hospital are lacking. They said USG machine was lying defunct in the hospital and patients are forced to visit private clinics or other Government hospitals.
Locals said that the hospital has failed to cater the flow of patients after devastating floods in the Valley, as all most all the patients in the area preferred this hospital because they couldn’t move to the teritary hospitals which were recently damaged in flood fury.
A doctor at the hospital admitted the lack of proper healthcare but held the heavy rush of patients due to floods responsible for it. “There is scarcity of doctors, lack of infrastructure and advanced medical equipments,” he said.
The doctor said that only six doctors are posted in the hospital to take care of hundreds of patients every day. “It affects the quality treatment to patients”, he added. He said that there is no proper space as the new hospital building is still under-construction.
Medical Superintendent DH Shopian, Dr Ismail, told Excelsior that the authorities should at least complete a portion of the new hospital building to avoid inconveniences to the patients due to space shortage. He said keeping in view the patient flow, the hospital administration has written many a times to the higher authorities for deploying more doctors, but nothing has happened.
Officials at Deputy Administration, Shopian, said that the work on new hospital building was started in May 2009 at a cost of Rs 23.65 crore. “So far only Rs 7 crore has been spent for the construction”, they said, adding the pace of the construction is so slow that it would take decades to complete.
Dr Ismail also admitted that the USG was lying defunct from last one and half month after developing some technical snag. “I have written to Director Health Services Kashmir and Deputy Commissioner Shopian about this issue and am hopeful to get it (USG) repaired very soon,” he said.
Follow our WhatsApp channel