Tangmarg: Sub District Hospital, Tangmarg, presents grim picture of ailing health sector in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district with people alleging mismanagement, absence of doctors and technical staff having become a norm here.
“It is the height of mismanagement when doctors and permanent paramedics exchange their night duties with BUMS colleagues and health volunteers who are supposed to see patients arriving here from several dozen villages,” alleged a local adding that unhygienic conditions of wards and bathrooms, absenteeism and lack of life saving equipment including oxygen cylinders was a serious concern for the masses.
While talking to this reporter, patients as well as the attendants maintained that they were forced to sit in the shabby wards with broken beds and torn blankets. Moreover, lack of life saving equipment including oxygen cylinders was the serious concern haunting people coming here in the hope of receiving treatment.
“I took my mother to SDH Tangmarg. She needed immediate oxygen after feeling breathlessness. The oxygen cylinder that was provided to us had little oxygen left and there was no arrangement for replacement,” said another attendant adding that the storekeeper had taken the keys causing a severe life threatening situation for the patient. “Finally the door of store was broken as my mother was nearly breathless”, said the attendant.
Another patient, Ishfaq Ahmad, alleged that doctors who are on night duty reach very late and patients are forced to visit private hospitals and clinics. He further said that the doctors here were allowing BUMS and other volunteers to take charge of the hospital in their place while they prefer not to perform their night duties.
Claiming that the government medical store in the hospital which is supposed to dispense medicine for the patients, another attendant alleged that the store was nearly defunct and thus people had to run to the market, every now and then, to fetch even the basic medicine. “No free medicine is provided to the poor and even for a simple PCM injection one has to get it from market. They don’t provide disposal syringes either,” another attendant said.
When contacted, Block Medical Officer, Dr.Saba Wani, refuted the allegations of dearth of oxygen cylinders and said that the hospital had amply of oxygen cylinders and oxygen concentrators available. “People want oxygen cylinders for home we can’t provide. We have oxygen concentrators,” she added.
When asked about exchange night duties by paramedics and doctors with volunteers and BUMS doctors and issue of providing free medicines, she didn’t skipped the question asking the reporter to visit her officer for detailed answer.
