by Hikmat Yar
Srinagar
Despite being the center for many adjacent areas, the village Ashmuji of south Kashmir’s Kulgam district lacks basic facilities for health.
Being highly populated with a vast area, the government, according to the locals, has never bothered to upgrade the only allopathic dispensary into a Primary Health Centre (PHC) or Community Health Centre (CHC).
“In the present time when CHC’S and PHC’s have even been set-up in small villages, but Ashmuji had been ignored,” said Inayat Ahmad a local resident of Ashmuji.
“We have a small dispensary, set up in September 1967 by then MLA Mohd Yaqoob Bhat. From time to time we are being deceived by local MLA’s by promising upgradation of the dispensary but that never happened,” he said.
“The dispensary caters the population of the adjacent areas of Herpora, Mirpora, Darpora and check Ashmuji, but due to the dearth of staff and machinery, the dispensary hardly serves any purpose said,” Mushtaq Ahmad a resident of Ashmuji.
“It is very difficult for the people from adjacent areas to rush emergency patients or delivery cases to district hospital Kulgam. Most of the time patients died before reaching the hospital,” said a local resident of Ashmuji Riyaz Ahmad.
“There are no specialists here and the dispensary has a single bed for treating the patients of village consisting population in thousands. In the present time, medical science is much advanced but unfortunately, we are being treated with same kind of drugs given to patients in nineties,” said another resident.
“Ashmuji village is a hub of education where the students from the whole district are enrolled in the educational institutions. Total educational institutions are twelve in number consisting of eight government (including 1 higher secondary) and four private schools (3 secondary, 1 middle school). In these institutions, more than two thousand students study on daily basis. But to their fate no primary health centre is so far established by the government to treat students in emergency situations,” said a local Muhammad Ibrahim.
When contacted, Chief Medical Officer Kulgam, Dr Fazil Kochak said, “that the mentioned dispensary is a sub-centre of their department providing basic twenty-three drugs under free drug policy.
However, he said for a primary health centre we need an area of having thirty thousand population. The area has a PHC within four kilometres in Qaimoh.
“The expectations of the people have increased but where from infrastructure and manpower will come to establish PHC’s in every village,” Dr Fazil added.
