No building for satellite hospital at Fatahpur

Manmeet Singh Gill

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, November 16

Even after around a year of the demolition of the building of satellite hospital, Fatahpur, to clear the land for the construction of the central jail, the health department has failed to get a chunk of land for the hospital.

As the hospital was shifted to the spacious and underutilised building of the Municipality Jenana Hospital, Dhab Khatika, residents of areas surrounding Fatahpur have been deprived of medical facilities.

The residents of the area now have to travel to far-off hospitals in the city to get medical aid. The department had earlier opened five satellite hospitals on the periphery of the city so that the residents of the surrounding villages could get basic medical facilities at their doorstep.

Village residents said the satellite hospital was a big boon for people, especially pregnant women, who could get medical facilities there easily. “Now people have to take patients to hospitals in city. As the Dhab Khatika hospital is inside the old city, it is not easier to reach there,” said a resident, Kashmir Singh.

However, the rural people were deprived of the facility. The residents of areas near Dhab Khatika have also not gained much because it already was running the Municipality Jenana Hospital from the same building to which satellite hospital staff have been shifted.

An employee with the hospital said, “The department had not pushed hard for getting an alternative plot for the hospital building after the old building was demolished. Due to this, the residents of the area have been deprived of the facilities.”

As the Civil Surgeon, Dr Jai Singh, could not be contacted, a senior official of the department said the government had instructed the village panchayat to provide land for the hospital. “Punjab Health Systems Corporation had agreed to construct the new building but the panchayat did not transfer the land,” he said.