Sajid Raina
Gurez, Oct 29: An acute shortage of doctors and other paramedical staff at Primary Health Centre (PHC) in Budaab village of Gurez in north Kashmir’s Bandipora district has come under severe criticism with the patients alleging it to be a reason of immense hardships.
Talking to the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), the locals alleged that the claims being made by the authorities regarding better health care in remote areas have fallen flat on the ground.
“The PHC was established in 1990, when a local Army unit provided a building for it but since then it has not been upgraded and is running without proper facilities, forcing the patients to visit private clinics or to other hospitals for treatment,” locals alleged.
The locals also said that they have repeatedly raised the issue with the district health authorities, but to no avail. “Recently my young daughter was sick and I took her to the PHC. However, soon after I reached there, I was asked to take her Dawar Sub District Hospital,” said Abdul Majeed, a local resident.
Similarly, last week Suriya Jan another resident has visited the PHC after developing fracture in her arm but she was refused treatment there as there was no X-ray technician available in the hospital.
“One fails to understand the need of making the machines available when there is no staff to help the patients out,” she said, adding that after spending lakhs of rupees for making the x-ray machine available, not even a single operator is posted here to operate the machinery.
A source disclosed that number of posts is lying vacant in PHC including Dental, Pharmacist, lab technician, x-ray technician and others.
Meanwhile, the locals urged the district administration to fill the vacant posts at the PHC so that they could heave a sigh of relief.
Block Medical Officer (BMO) Gurez, Tahira Nazeer while admitting lack of facilities in the hospital said that the new building is under construction and all the problems will come to an end once the building is completed.
However, she termed the allegations of non-availability of staff at PHC as baseless, saying that they have already posted a doctor and a nurse there while the other similar issues will be resolved at an earliest—(KNO)
