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| Hospitals lack heating system: patients, attendants shiver with cold | | | Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, Nov 3: As Kashmir witnessed snowfall leading to dip in temperature, there is no heating arrangements in hospitals across Kashmir, giving tough times to patients and attendants.
According to the Meteorological Office, the minimum temperature in Srinagar was 1.8 degrees Celsius while it was 0.4 and minus 3.0 in Pahalgam and Gulmarg, respectively.
Amid harsh cold, the heating system in hospitals across Kashmir is yet to be made operational, causing inconvenience to patients and attendants.
The patients and attendants in the hospitals like, Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) hospital, Bone and Joint hospital Barzulla and Chest Disease hospital Dalgate were left to face severe cold on Saturday.
Hundreds of patients approach these hospitals every day and they were shivering while waiting for their turn due to the non-availability of heating facility.
Patients at Chest Disease hospital suffering from asthma and pneumonia are forced to keep themselves warm by using firepots (Kangris) which ultimately harms them more.
"We use fire pots as a heating tool as there is no other alternative for heating available to us," said Altaf Ahmad, an attendant at Chest Disease hospital.
"I have been here since three days as my brother underwent surgery but we have also been using fire pots or water bottles as there is no heating arrangements," said Sharif Ahmad, another patient at Bone and Joint Hospital Srinagar.
"We are left here in this cold without any heating facility," he said.
"It is a known fact that the cold season in Kashmir begins in November and the heating arrangements in hospitals should be put in place on priority. The authorities have failed to come up with an answer to this problem. As a result of this the patients become disease prone instead of being cured," said Ghulam Nabi, a resident of Ganderbal.
He said that state government has taken no measures to ensure sustained heating arrangements in the hospitals.
The story at Lalla Ded Hospital is equally pathetic as there is no heating arrangements.
"There is no heating facility and we use water bottles to help ourselves," said Farooq Ahmad a patient, an attendant.
He went on saying that government makes all possible arrangements for its employees but turns its blind eye towards poor patients who are left with no choice but to bear the brunt of the bitter cold. As per him, the hospitals look more like the cold storages because these hospitals remain in the tight grip of the cold in the absence of the heating arrangements.
People of the valley opine that the officials of the concerned department have no idea about the sufferings of the patients who are admitted in the hospitals despite the fact that there are no heating arrangements in the health institutions. |
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