Health centre at Sahnewal in ICU

Lovleen Bains

Sahnewal, May 18

One can very well imagine the condition of a Community Health Centre (CHC) without a physician, gynaecologist, paediatrician or for that matter even a surgeon.

For a population of more than seven lakh to cater to, mere three MBBS doctors are in no way sufficient for the Community Health Centre as the one, which is located at Sahnewal.

While there is serious lack of the hospital staff, the Senior Medical Officer (SMO) is facing tough time trying to cope up with the heavy rush of patients. Although he claims of handling patients somehow, but the latter sometimes return dissatisfied.

“There is no gynaecologist to help women in deliveries or expected cases, no pediatrician to look after child aliments, no physician to handle diabetics, such people with BP or general ailments,” rued a patient.

“We simply fail to understand that if a government hospital has been provided, is it just to raise a building and make a mere show of facilities being offered to its residents? Is the hospital going to work on its own without any staff?” yelled a senior citizen of the town.

“The hospital caters to a population of approximately seven lakh people. When patients have no pockets to visit private doctors, they are sure to indulge in self medication and invite still greater trouble,” was the view of a medical practitioner of Sahnewal.

“It has been more than three years now that residents of the town and surrounding villages of Sahnewal are suffering due to severe scarcity of doctors at the CHC in Sanhewal. As a result, poor patients have either to suffer or shell out thousands of rupees to private doctors. Many times when a doctor is on leave patients feel completely deserted,” shared Harbans Singh Sains, a member of the Young Citizens Association.

When contacted, the Sahnewal SMO, Dr JP Singh shared, “We get 200 to 250 patients daily. Our staff, the minimal we have, has to work day and night to manage the inflow of patients. As there are no MDs so, we cannot afford to handle emergencies in that particular field.”

“Though we are somehow trying to pull through by arranging doctors from the periphery rotation wise, but sometimes it becomes difficult to manage. I as a surgeon have to manage the onrush and even perform surgeries. I myself have to handle every emergency as there is serious staff crunch at present,” he added.

The SMO said, “Doctors, too, want to be transferred to rural areas, including Koom Kalan and Katani Kalan among other places, rather than Sahnewal as the latter comes under urban domain and they do not get any benefit of having worked here for their postgraduation.”