Excelsior Correspondent
-Excelsior/Vasu Gupta
UDHAMPUR, July 11: The already bed ridden health care services in Udhampur district have virtually gone on life support systems as not a single MBBS doctor is available in 15 PHCs which cover more than half area of the entire district whereas more than three lakh souls are dependent on these PHCs. What is more astonishing is the fact that sweepers are managing sub-centres at many places and what to talk of saving precious lives, even thousands of rupees are required to be spent for postmortem of the dead body in the area without any MBBS doctor.
In PHCs of Sudhmahadev, Latti, Bandhole, Dudu, Basantgarh, Joffar, Mongri (Tikri) Mongri ( Panchari), Rang, Barnara, Thial, Khoon, Landher, Panchari and Gharian which cater to nearly half of the district area with above three lakh residents not even a single doctor is physically present against the sanctioned strength of 60 as each PHC has four sanctioned posts of doctors.
Residents are facing problems owing to the acute shortage of MBBS doctors and other paramedical staff in the hospitals of Chenani, Panchari, Mongri, Ghordi and Ramnagar, and they have been regularly protesting but all have fallen to deaf and dumb ears of the concerned authorities.
“Our entire area of two sub-divisions of Dudu and Basantgarh and tehsil Latti starting from Sudhmahadev, which is spread all along 160 Kms long Sudhmahadev-Latti- Dudu –Basantgarh –Kulwanta- Ramnagar stretch of circular road, does not have even a single MBBS doctor physically present to treat the patients in six PHCs. Sweepers are constrained to give medicines in many sub-centres in our areas as there is acute shortage of paramedical staff also”, said Krishan Lal Gupta resident of Latti.
“In absence of MBBS doctors in this entire area, usually when cardiac arrest or any other emergency happens, we have seen several deaths on route. We are being treated as sheep and goats as a sweeper gives us medicine in the sub-centres here. Letters to the Chief Minister, Health Minister and all top bureaucrats have yielded no results. The CMO expresses his helplessness every time when we meet him. Is this the indication of good times coming ahead”, said Bayant Devi , Sarpanch of Chapper- Bandhole Panchayat in Latti area. “Ram Nath, a resident of Parla Chapper is presently forced to give medicines at health sub-centre Parla Chapper and is popularly called as Doctor Sahib by the illiterate resident of this far flung area but he is a sweeper in records of the State Health Department,” she added and informed that there are several other sub-centres, which are either closed or class- 4 employees are running the show there.
In absence of a MBBS doctor, who is only authorized to carry out a postmortem, in case an unnatural death occurs, residents have to take the dead body at least to Chenani for which rupees 1700 are to be officially spent even for hiring Government ambulance service and it takes more than a day in this entire process. “We have several times here in Latti collected donations from the market as poor attendants don’t have money in their pocket. We also personally met the Health Minister recently and apprised him of all these problems but all in vain,” said Dina Nath, social worker of the area.
Besides, only two beds are there in the PHC Latti which caters to nearly a hundred OPDs every day and the under construction building has not been completed for the last one decade, he added.
“We have neither a MBBS doctor in PHC Dudu nor an ECG machine or a X-ray in this entire area due to which these PHCs have turned out to be nothing but just referral centres and we have to travel more than 100 Kms before getting treatment,” said Beg Raj Gupta, a whole sale merchant of Dudu.
MoS Finance and MLA Udhampur Pawan Kumar Gupta said that he was fully aware of all these problems in health care sector and had taken up these issues with the Health Minister. “We hope some respite very soon as saving precious lives has to be the utmost priority of the Government”, he added.
“Health care services are virtually on life support system as almost seven out of every 10 posts of MBBS doctors in my constituency are lying vacant. We have an Operation Theatre in Ramnagar hospital but of no use as the posts of surgeon as well as anesthesia doctors are lying vacant”, said R S Pathania, MLA Ramnagar.
When contacted, Chief Medical Officer Arun Sharma confirmed the shortage of MBBS doctors and para medical staff in a number of hospitals. “Only 36 MBBS doctors are physically present in the entire district against sanctioned posts of 112 and even the highest authorities in the health sector are fully aware of this problem. All the MLAs had raised this issue in the DDB Meeting which was chaired by the Chief Minister himself and our Health Minister who is the Chairman of the DDB,” he said. Our priority is to run district hospital and the sub-hospitals of Ramnagar and Chenani where we have the largest number of OPDs and sufficient infrastructure available. I personally feel helpless many a times but it is beyond my authority”, he added.
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