Kharar Civil Hospital awaits facelift

Shashi Pal Jain

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Kharar, August 26

The local Civil Hospital here has been the lifeline of the area for the past four decades. Even before the concept of Tricity came up, apart from the PGIMER, Chandigarh, in those times, this hospital served as a primary health centre for 100 villages in the periphery.

However, successive governments have failed to upgrade the 50-bed hospital to at least 100 beds considering the load of patients it caters to.

Nearly 500 patients from the area visit the Civil Hospital OPD for treatment. The situation is compounded by the fact that the busy Chandigarh-Ludhiana and the Chandigarh-Ropar road, besides the Landran-Chunni stretch, where accidents take place daily and the victims are brought here in serious condition, but are referred to a higher centre due to lack of trauma care facilities.

The hospital also caters to medico-legal cases of the seven police stations, including Kharar city, Kharar Sadar, Kurali, Mullanpur Garibdas, Balongi, Ghauran and Kurali. This leads to lot of paper work and pressure on doctors as well as the staff. Patients suffer as most of the time doctors need to go to courts for attending legal cases.

Even students from scores of universities and colleges that have come up in the vicinity visit the Civil Hospital for their health needs.

Earlier, during the previous government in Punjab the then Punjab Health Minister, Surjeet Jiani, had declared that necessary upgrade of the Civil Hospital would be done, but nothing happened.

The present Health Minister Brahm Mohindra, too, declared that the Civil Hospital would be upgraded. However, no development had taken place at the ground level.

The hospital urgently requires a new digital X-Ray machine, ultrasound machine and private rooms. Besides, internal roads of the hospital need repairs. Unhygienic conditions prevail at the hospital. There is enough land on the hospital premises where other facilities can be easily provided.

When contacted, the Civil Hospital SMO, Dr Surinder Singh said, “The hospital provides 24 hours services of labour room, blood bank and emergency. Many medicines are available at Jan Aushadhi chemist shop on the hospital premises.”

What hospital needs

• New digital X-Ray machine. 
• New ultrasound machine. 
• Required private rooms on hospital permises. 
• Internal roads of the facility need urgent repairs. 
• Removal of prevailing unhygienic conditions in the hospital. 
• No. of beds to go up from 50 to 100 keeping in view patients’ footfall.