Hallo Majra dispensary at mercy of ad hoc doctors

Mohit Khanna 

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 25

Hallo Majra dispensary located at the border of the City Beautiful presents a sorry state of health infrastructure.

Catering to a population of nearly 35,000, the lone civil dispensary of the area is at the mercy of temporary doctors. For the past 11 months, no regular doctor has been deployed at the dispensary, which is being run by the Municipal Corporation (MC).

For the past three months, Dalip Kaur, former panch of Hallo Majra, has been shuttling from one office to another, urging the authorities to deploy a permanent doctor at the dispensary. But all her requests have fallen on deaf ears.

“Imagine, a woman living near the Airport area faces an emergency situation and rushes to the dispensary along with her children in the scorching heat. On coming here, she could not find a doctor. Several women of the area suffer similar ordeal each day and sadly officials are doing nothing to resolve the issue,” complained Dalip Kaur.

While the doctor’s room was vacant, the handout pasted on the board reads that that doctor is available on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

“Huge rush of patients could be witnessed during the three days when the doctors are available. As the monsoon is approaching, mosquito-bite cases, including dengue, will start rearing their head. We fear the situation will go out of control if the authorities will not take timely action and deploy a permanent medical officer at the dispensary,” said area residents gathered outside the dispensary.

Several efforts were made to reach Medical Officer Health (MOH) Dr Pardeep Visheshi and area councillor Bharat Bhushan to find out the impediment in posting a regular medical officer at the dispensary, but both of them remained incommunicado.

Pregnant women and those taking their children to the dispensary were angered at the unavailability of regular doctors.

The residents complained that they were being meted out a step-motherly treatment as most of them belong to the economically weaker section.