WE THE PEOPLE
Despite Sub-District Hospital Ganderbal lacking man-power, Diagnostic facilities, remains Over-crowded
Hence People urge Authorities to provide Requisite Facilities to render it fit to cater to needs of Patients
By: Mirror News Service
Srinagar: In our pursuit to evaluate level of Health Services available to our people, especially the ailing lot, we have started a detailed survey of the Hospitals in different districts of Kashmir valley.
Here our journey inside the Sub District Hospital Ganderbal reveals that this lone government Hospital is supposed to cater to health needs to an estimated population of about five lakhs. It is officially a 30 Bedded Hospital with eighteen doctors, who are working in the Hospital. The Hospital comprises of Causality Services, OPD, General Surgery, Orthopedics, Ophthalmology, Pediatrics and Gynecology.
While having an objective assessment of the facilities and the quality of care available to the patients in the Hospital, it was established that the kind of facilities and infrastructure was far from satisfactory. For the Outdoor medical facilities in existence, the scope to get better treatment by everyone is generally insufficient; the presence of Medical and Para-medical personnel is often much less than that required by the Prescribed Norms; the equipment in the Hospital was found non-functional and the buildings are in a dilapidated condition. In the Indoor treatment facilities, again the equipment was found obsolescent; the availability of essential drugs is minimal; the capacity of the facilities is grossly inadequate, which leads to over-crowding, and consequentially to a steep deterioration in the quality of the services.
Subhan Dar a local resident of Ganderbal and an attendant to a patient said, "Here in this Hospital we face many problems often as the drugs are not available and we have to purchase them from the open market. Also many times we have to avail the facility of blood examination or like other tests to be done from private clinics." He further said, "The District Ganderbal -being a constituency of the Chief Minister, but no immediate steps are taken so as to address the health related issues of this district."
As stated above, the Hospital has eighteen doctors; 8 nurses; 1 permanent Laboratory technician (other 4 are working by debit to the Hospital Development Fund) and 2 ambulances-of which one is not functional. The daily patient inflow to the Hospital is about 300 in the OPD. Though a huge rush of patients visiting the Hospital, the doctors available remain under constant pressure of the overload of work and hence the quality of treatment and diagnosis to the patients always remains at stake
It must be noted that the doctor in position' does not necessarily mean that all the doctors are physically present round the clock in their respective centers; thus an atmosphere of over burden of patients to the already present doctors signifies the crisis of shortage of man power, which needs to be addressed at an earliest.
The Hospital does not have blood bank facility which at times pushes the authorities to refer the serious cases of patients to other Hospitals for treatment -like surgeries etc. Also the Hospital has a serious shortage of qualified technicians who could handle the modern gadgets. There is a mess of work culture, as one man has to perform the job of several men. For instance Ghulam Hassan Sofi, a pharmacist has to do the duty of a store keeper also. Similarly others, who are working in the Hospital, have to do more than their capabilities; hence a compromising nature of duties has been done by a number of paramedical staff. One of the sources in the Hospital, who wished not to be named said, "No emphasis is laid on the quality of work done here, even at some time the government help to the Hospital by providing the latest machinery, but because of no effective and quality technician who could handle the machines with ease; most of them rusted. Therefore, the authorities should take these issues seriously and need to be examined of entrusting some limited public health functions to nurses, paramedics and other personnel like- Lab Technicians, Radio Diagnosis Technicians, Physiotherapists from Health Sector. It should be done through proper mechanism by imparting adequate training to them.
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