Bandipora, July 26: The Health department in north Kashmir’s Bandipora district Monday said that the matter of a pregnant woman being locked inside the NTPHC in Nowgam village was being taken very seriously although the Inquiry Committee was yet to file its report.
Additional Deputy Commissioner Bandipora, Zahoor Ahmad, who is the Inquiry Officer into the incident told Greater Kashmir that the inquiry was going on and the final report was yet to be submitted.
Deputy Commissioner Bandipora had ordered an inquiry a day after the incident.
The inquiry was supposed to be completed within a day.
On July 19, Shabnam, a 30-year-old expecting mother was admitted at a health facility and put on an IV drip at the hospital following the complaint of persistent vomiting.
Meanwhile, the staff shut the facility and left without informing Shabnam, who had an IV set still attached to her.
She told media persons that no one came to her and that she had to remove the IV by herself after realising that the hospital staff had abandoned the patients and locked the facility from outside.
She along with other middle-aged patients called their relatives for help.
The issue caught eyeballs and locals caller for strict action against the hospital staff.
DC Bandipora Owais Ahmad on July 20 said that an inquiry committee headed by an Additional Deputy Commissioner had been constituted and that the committee was set to file the report by that evening.
However, even after the passage of a week, the officials say that the inquiry was yet to be completed.
The concerned Blocks Medical Officer (BMO), Hajin, Aijaz Ahmad told Greater Kashmir that the department was taking the matter seriously and the salary of the doctor and a paramedic on duty at NTPHC in Sumbal division’s Nowgam village on that fateful day had been kept on hold.
Ahmad said that three inquiries were going on simultaneously – one internal, the other from outside the block, and another being carried out externally.