Sanctioned nine years ago, the 100-bed District hospital in the Bandipora district is awaiting completion, thus leaving the people of the district to suffer.The foundation stone for the hospital was laid in the year 2010. Since then, eight years passed, work on construction of District Hospital has vanished the hopes of its timely completion.District Hospital is built at an estimated cost of Rs 28.24 crores out of which Rs 22 crore have been utilized so far, sources told KNO, adding that the executing agency has missed three deadlines till now, for the completion of the hospital. Sources further added that going by the pace of work, it is unlikely that the hospital will be completed this year.The present hospital is painting a grim picture of the health institute as its OPD and other sections are running in a tin sheds, which is yet of SDH status lacks proper space due to which people are suffering. “The execution work of the hospital is being carried out by JK Housing Board,” source said.The administration of SDH, said lack of space is affecting the healthcare services as the present building is insufficient to cater to the huge rush of the patients that hospital witness every day.“The space constraint is also hampering the overall functioning of the hospital and patient care. The old building is insufficient to cater to the huge rush of patients that visit the hospital every day. The hospital caters the population of over a hundreds of villages and lack of space forces patients to visit other hospitals for medical treatment. Several patients had died while being shifted to the other centers. The Hospital is overcrowded and it takes a lot of time to get treatment here,” they said.
Scores of patients from upper reach like Doban, Athwatoo, Kudara, Wevan and other areas come to the hospital for treatment but are many a time referred to Srinagar or Sopore due to the want of space at the hospital.Locals said that, the patients are suffering immensely due to the space constraints and less number of beds in the SDH building, from which the hospital is currently functioning. They blamed the politicians of playing politics over the hospital that led to the delay in making the hospital operational.Alleging political meddling as the cause of the delay, Asif Iqbal a local said that the Hospital was sanctioned for Bandipora in the tenure of then Congress - NC Govt, but after the change of regime, the commissioning of the hospital is witnessing unnecessary delay.Another local, Suhail Wani said that, had the hospital building been completed, our sufferings on account of healthcare would have been mitigated. Tariq Ahmad complained of slow pace of work. He said that i don't think this hospital will be completed in near future. “When Foundation stone of hospital was laid, the officials had set a deadline of four years for completion of Project. Since then several deadlines have passed but the hospital is still incomplete. The residents are seeking the intervention of the governor in making the hospital operational,” he said.Earlier, months ago, CMO Bandipora claimed that, the hospital would be completed by the end of the year 2018; however, the project is still incomplete.When contacted, DC Bandipora Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary told KNO that the hospital building is almost complete and will be functional in the First week of February.He said that partial operations will start in first week of February and remaking technical work will continue in supervision of medicos there. He added that work remained suspended for more than a year before we forcibly got it started in July 2018.(KNO)