BY ZAFFER IQBAL
Your excellency, I am writing to you from one of the proudest places of the country, from where India carried out the famous surgical strike and the place which has given birth to many martyrs - It is Uri.
Our town is one of the far-off hamlets of Kashmir and lacks many basic facilities and services. Today, I want to raise certain issues related to the health infrastructure of my border town.
Despite the introduction of Smridhi Seema Yojana, a component of the Border Area Development Plan (BADP), our health infrastructure is still in shambles.
The tehsil Uri and Boniyar Sub-divisions of Uri caters 100 plus villages and the population of twin tehsils consists of more than 2,80,000 lakh. Majority of the population is living in tough terrains as all of it is a hilly area. And at least 40 villages of the Uri and Boniyar tehsil are located on LoC. The topography of these two tehsils is such that it is naturally hard to survive.
In a welfare state, especially in a democratic country like India, health is considered as a basic and fundamental right. The same has been time and again held by the courts and have declared the right to health as an implied part of the right to life. The government of India time and again has initiated numerous schemes, however I feel many of them don’t reach Uri.
The Sub-District Hospital (SDH) Uri has no sanctioned posts of several doctors. The hospital lacks the posts of ENT, Sonologist, Ophthalmologist and Radiologist.
Even if the hospital has a high quality USG machine but due to lack of a sonologist, the facility is not available here. SDH Uri authorities have appointed a medical officer who does it twice a week. Same medical officer has also been assigned the same duty for other health centres.
The inhabitants are facing hardships while undergoing even minor surgery in SDH Uri, especially women are facing it during pregnancy period; due to lack of Blood Bank and Sonologist.
Even during minor complications, and due to non-availability of resources, hospital authorities are forced to refer patients to Baramulla district Hospital for treatment. The non-availability of above mentioned facilities has made life of peopel in this area tough and troublesome.
Uri has been the worst victim of the cross-border shelling and land mines. Being located a few kilometres away from the LoC, SDH Uri has been attending the cases of cross-border shelling and landmine victims.
Since the hospital lacks trauma care, most of the critical cases are shifted to Baramulla and Srinagar. Further, both tehsils lack some of basic requirements like CT-Scan and blood bank facilities.
Being a local journalist, I witness the miseries and hardships of my fellow people daily. I hear their pleas daily and feel that in this big democracy we are absolutely unrepresented.
Author is a journalist based in Uri. He is Media & Communications head of Uri Foundation, a local NGO.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author.
The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK.
