Patients and attendants visiting the Sub-district Hospital Khansahib in Budgam district on Friday said the hospital administration has failed to ensure uninterrupted power supply in the hospital which had severely affected patient care and forced many patients to get costly treatment in private hospitals.
Several attendants of patients visiting the hospital told Greater Kashmir that from the past one month several surgeries have been cancelled in the hospital due to erratic power supply. “Some patients are forced to conduct costly surgeries at private nursing homes,” said an attendant. “How can they cancel and postpone surgeries due to erratic power supply in this age.”
The affected patients said that the hospital administration, despite having a hotline for continuous supply of electricity to the building, has failed to ensure uninterrupted power supply which forces patients to get their X-rays and other procedures done at private centres. Besides defunct solar panels installed in the hospital premises, the hospital lacks proper power backup due to which the X-Ray machines also remain defunct most of the time.
The patients allege that despite numerous reminders, the hospital administration has failed to take up the matter with the concerned Power Development Department Authorities. “The officials should have taken up the matter with the PDD or higher ups so that the patients won’t have to face any inconvenience. But it seems they are just sleeping over the issue for reasons better known to them,” said another affected patient.
Block Medical Officer Sub district hospital Khansahib, Dr. Masroor Rizvi said that the hospital faces lot of problems and many surgeries have been cancelled due to erratic power supply in the hospital. “The hotline to the hospital has been started this year but unfortunately electricity remains erratic due to which our work suffers,” said Rizvi. “We have a mini electric generator on which we can’t perform surgical procedures. We don’t even have a well set-up solar panel despite repeated notices to engineers for its repairing.”