Baramulla, June 6: The residents of Baramulla Sunday appealed the government to restart the Outpatient Departments (OPDs) and non-emergency services across the hospitals of the north Kashmir district.
Scores of patients across north Kashmir urged the administration to re-start the OPDs and non-emergency services in district hospitals as well as Government Medical College (GMC) Baramullain absence of which thousands of patients were facing severe hardships.
The district hospitals as well as the associate hospital GMC Baramulla are carrying non-elective procedures while elective procedures have been put on hold following the surge in Covid-19 patients during the second wave of pandemic.
Fayaz Ahmad, a resident of Sopore town, has been waiting for more than three weeks for the removal of stones from his gallbladder but the hospital authorities did not carry the procedure as such surgeries are not being carried in the hospitals presently.
“I am suffering from severe pain due to the stone in my gallbladder. I have visited both the government hospitals at Sopore and Baramulla but they refused to carry the procedure saying that only emergency procedures can be carried out right now,” he said.
Muhammad Akram of Rafiabad termed the present procedure in the hospitals “painful” and “unpleasant” for non-Covid patients.
“I am unable to perform the hip surgery of my son for the last two weeks. The doctors have rescheduled his date of surgery. Now, my only hope is revoking of the elective procedures order in the hospitals,” he said.
Following the second wave of the pandemic, the administration has put on hold elective surgeries in the designated Covid-19 hospitals, most of which are district hospitals. The locals while urging for the restart of elective procedures in the hospitals said that if authorities claim that the graph of Covid-19 is coming down, then they must think of revoking the directive of putting elective procedures on hold.
“Health care is not about Covid-19 patients only. There are scores of non-Covid patients who are suffering due to this directive. The authorities must revisit their order and start non-emergency services in the hospitals,” said Abdul Ahad Bhat of Baramulla town.