Governor’s Advisor skips to visit M&CCH Anantnag, upsets concerned citizens

Hospital faces space crunch, functions from depilated building

Anantnag, November 14: Contrary to the expectations, Advisor to Governor, K Vijay Kumar on Wednesday didn’t visit the Maternity and Child Care Hospital Anantnag to get first hand appraisal of problems hospital faces.

The advisor’s decision to not visit the hospital has upset locals, concerned citizens’ and trade union bodies of Anantnag district.

Advisor to Governor, K Vijay Kumar on Wednesday morning arrived in Anantnag and visited under construction Rehmat-e-Alam hospital and took stock of the construction works. He also visited Modern Hospital at Dooru.

Local residents told Early Times that they were expecting to Advisor to Governor, K Vijay Kumar will visit Maternity and Child Care hospital.

“We hoped that he (Advisor to Governor) will visit M&CC Hospital and see how hospital authorities handle patients and what kind of facilities they are providing patients,” Hakeem Sajad Shah General Secretary Trade Union told Early Times.

Shah said that he accompanied Advisor when he visited Rehmat-e-Alam hospital and insisted him to visit Materninty and Child Care Hospital Anantnag.

‘Phir Kabi’ was his reply when I requested him to visit Hospital and see how patients are suffering, said Shah.

Shah said that had advisor visited the hospital and saw three patients sharing on bed things would have changed and money meant for the construction of new hospital would have been released.

“Unfortunately, Govt has released only 2 Cr rupees since the day they took over the Rehmat-e-Alam hospital and contractor informed us that he has spent just 75 Lakh rupees,” claimed shah.

Anantnag residents accused district administration and health department of presenting rosy picture of M&CC hospital while the fact is that hospital continues to function from depilated building declared unsafe few years ago.

Chief Medical Officer Anantnag Dr Fazil Kochak, when contacted claimed that visit to Maternity Hospital wasn’t on schedule. “Advisor shah wasn’t scheduled to visit hospital and everybody in government knows in which condition the hospital is,” he told Early Times over phone.

Pertinent to mention, Maternity and Child Care Hospital Anantnag, established in 1956, is located in congested Sherbagh Locality and continues to function from depilated building.

 The health department has floated all the norms and rules of marinating space from bed to bed to winds and has huddled over twenty beds in post-operative wards and drastically minimized bed to bed space.

Distance between beds isn’t more than 1 feet while according to the norms its must be more than 8 feet.  Even a nurse or doctor who visits the patients for injecting some injections can’t move around the bed. Major problem in this hospital is ventilation problem. The authorities have converted the main corridor of the hospital into a ward.  Due to irregular cleaning, Sanitation inside wards remains poor and gives rise to post-operative complications, hospital sources revealed.

Due to the space crunch in the hospital the labour and surgical wards having the capacity of seven or eight beds are huddle with 18 to 20 beds.