What happened to new children hospital? Asks CSFK ‘700 days have passed since the announcement was made’
Srinagar: Civil Society Forum Kashmir (CSFK)-Health has strongly condemned the delay in construction of new paediatric hospital and calls it criminal on the part of concerned authorities for taking the Health and medical facilities of even infants, small and sick children for granted.
According to a statement issued to KNS, CSFK has said that it fails to understand how can be health issues taken non-serious and uncalled on part of the Government. “Instead it should have been the top most priority of state Government to provide better Health Care and medical facilities to infants, new born babies, small and sick children. Even after requesting and reminding every door of Secretariat not a single file moved. Society will hold government responsible for this mess,” the CSFK has said.
A spokesman of the CSFK-Health has observed that GB Pant Hospital Srinagar, the only tertiary care Hospital catering to entire child population of Kashmir Valley, is in news headlines every now and then. “The newspaper reports almost daily highlight the huge rush of patients, backbreaking wait of outdoor patients in queues, cinema crowd like scenes in casualty, sharing of single bed by two or three patients in indoor wards, hospital corridors witnessing beelines of desperate attendants.”
CSFK-Health has said that more than 3,00,000 children visited the hospital during the preceding year ending 31th March 2014 as outdoor patients, out of which more than 22,000 children were admitted as indoor patients. “This huge rush of patients can never be adequately cooped up in a facility where official bed strength of paediatric patients is just 135 beds. It is only because of dedication of present team of Doctors that hospital is still operational.”
The statement added that 700 days have passed since the day when Union Health Ministry and Government of Jammu & Kashmir State made an announcement of establishing a new 300-bedded child health Institute in Srinagar repeatedly in various press conferences and also while interacting with a delegation of Civil Society Forum Kashmir (CSFK).
The announcement by Government despite being on the aftermath of hundreds of infant deaths in GB Pant Hospital Srinagar, in the First four months of the year 2012, proved hoax. “Not to talk of establishing a new children Hospital in a fixed time frame, the proposal has not even seen the light of drawings on paper at architectural stage despite lapsing of almost two years. This amply demonstrates the lack of political will, administrative inertia, red tapism, regional bias and ignorance about impending catastrophe for the health of future generation of Kashmir Valley.” (KNS)