Suhail Bhat
SRINAGAR, Jan 14: Refle-cting a sorry state of rural healthcare, a single dentist is providing health care to more than 35 villages of South Kashmir’s Tral township owing to lack of doctors.
At Primary Health Centre Aripal in South Kashmir’s Tral area a single dentist, whose training did not permit him to treats all medical problems, treats all patients, prescribe medicines, lab tests, handle patients with chronic care needs and makes referrals to specialists.
In case of a medical emergency the health centre takes help from a local cab driver as the hospital ambulance is driver less. “We take services of a local cab driver as the authorities have failed to fill the post of a driver.. Sometimes he comes and sometimes he doesn’t show up,” an official at the Centre said, adding “if the driver fails to reach on time the doctor or any other employee drives the ambulance”.
On a Thursday afternoon, at Primary Health Centre Aripal, eight kilometers from the district headquarters Tral, there was no doctor available. The patients said they were waiting for several hours for the doctor. The 20 patients who came in during the day were given medication by the dentist and sent away. “After waiting for several hours a doctor, who is a dentist, came. I have a pain in my abdomen. How will a Dentist treat me,” asked a patient.
A room marked ‘X-ray’ was locked, and the officials said it had not been in use for several months after the machine developed a technical snag. “We have no X-ray technician in the hospital and the machine is defunct. The machine has stopped working possibly due to short circuit, but none has come to repair it,” “an official said, adding the Government was turning a blind eye toward the problems of the health centre.
The centre covers nearly 35 villages with a population of 50,000 and it is supposed to function from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. But staff shortage has hindered services, leaving the centre useless and some services that are supposed to be provided – such as diagnosis and health awareness, lab services – undelivered.
As per data from the health centre, there are five sanctioned posts of doctors, but only a dentist is available. Out of the five doctors two work under National Health Mission and are on strike from last ten-fifteen days over regularization of their services. A gynecologist who was working in the hospital has been sent to Sub District Hospital leaving behind the dentist to treat the gynae patients as well. “We have no option but to treat people here. We have written to the Health Department for last several months but they failed to redress our issues,” an official at the health centre said.
The Sub District Hospital Tral, which is the town’s nodal centre for treatment, is also under-staffed, sources said, adding doctors from peripheral health centers are attached to it to meet the shortage.
MLA Tral, Mushtaq Ahmad Shah, said 20 years have passed but the Sub District Hospital Tral is yet to be designated as the SDH by the Government so it has left the hospital under-staffed.
“Shortage of staff forces the department to call doctors from peripheries. If the Government designates Tral hospital as the SDH, it will get the required staff and the other health Centres in the area will not get affected”, he said.
“I will visit the health centre to take stock of the situation. I just came to know that the health centre has problems. Neither locals nor any health official told me about it. It’s a genuine concern and I will look into it,” the MLA said.
Asked about the lack of driver for the hospital ambulance Shah said: “I donated the ambulance two years back to the hospital but there were difficulties in filling post. Now, I have sent a requisition to the concerned official for filling up the post. Till then, we have arranged a temporary driver for the ambulance and he is getting salary from the Hospital Development Fund,” he said.
The MLA informed that the government has also allotted a Model Hospital for the area and the construction work has already begun. “The construction work on the hospital has begun and it will end the health care woes of the people once it is completed. It may, however, few years”, he said.
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