Zafar Aafaq

SRINAGAR

Mothers with their kids crowded the hospital in Pampore
Mothers with their kids crowded at Pampore Hospital.

Residents of the Pampore Tehsil in south Kashmir claim that Sub District Hospital (SDH) Pampore has only one doctor on duty in emergency. The shortage of doctors has aghasted the residents of the area.

“Once the OPD is over at 4 pm, the doctors leave and only one doctor stays in the hospital for emergency,” Riyaz Ahmad, a resident said.

Besides catering to Pampore town with a population of around 44000 and adjacent villages, the hospital receives patients from towns and villages as far as Awantipora, tral and Pulwama.

All the villages on either side of the National highway (Pantha Chowk to Awantipora) have SDH Pampore as only major hospital delivering health services. The hospital remains crowded most of the time with patients.

A resident of Pampore town, Jahangir Ahmad told Kashmir life, “last Sunday when I visited the hospital for medical check-up, I found more than two hundred patients in the hospital. The lone doctor on duty was shuttling between emergency room to handle new cases and emergency ward to attend admitted patients.”

In the event of road traffic accidents on the national highway there is only one doctor to handle the complex emergency.  “In such case the admitted patients remain unattended as the doctor gets busy with causalities,” Mushtaq Ahmad, another local said.

“What if doctor is busy with a delivery case in theatre and meanwhile accident causalities arrive at the hospital,” he asked.

The locals said that they had approached Gh Nabi Azad when he was union health minister who had “promised” them to resolve the issue but nothing has been done so far.

They demanded that emergency should have four doctors at least including a lady gynaecologist to handle delivery cases.

When contacted, Health minister Bali Bhagat confessed that Kashmir hospitals have shortage of doctors and asserted that issue will be resolved soon.

However, CMO Pulwama, Dr Fayaz Ahmad told Kashmir Life, “Everything is okay. There is no issue at all. There is adequate number of doctors at SDH Pampore”.

Before the reporter could have apprised him about locals’ complaint he hung up the phone.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here