Inadequate infra, limited access to specialised care bane of civil hospital

Gurdaspur’s healthcare system is neither healthy, nor caring. The Civil Hospital, the city’s primary health establishment, is located 6 km from the heart of the city, courtesy a former SAD MLA. The distance deters people from coming to the hospital for treatment. Instead, they are forced to go to relatively expensive private health facilities, where the gullible and poor are fleeced.

The 100-bed Gurdaspur Civil Hospital is located near Babri village on the Batala road. In 2016, an Akali leader thought it prudent to shift the health facility from the city to the village. This triggered protests, but the politician had his way as he belonged to the then ruling party. It was alleged that he had purchased land at Babri knowing fully well that it would be acquired at a much higher price than he had bought it. The logic propounded behind the shifting of the hospital was that the city had to be decongested. By the rationale, the Central Jail, District Administrative Complex (DAC) and Judicial Complex, too, should have been shifted to the outskirts. Finally, decks were cleared for the hospital to change its decades old address.

For the first few years, after the hospital was shifted, residents were a harried lot. Who would travel 6 km for treatment or a simple medical check-up? The hospital started wearing a desolate look. Even doctors and para-medical staff were loath to trudge long distances. Many doctors even resigned and took up private practice.

The new entity was a case of bad planning and even worse execution. Stakeholders claim the hospital does not have a road wide enough to let two vehicles cross at the same time. This has left doctors and patients flummoxed as to how the Health Department allowed the medical facility to become functional with such a narrow passage. Much against norms, the only approach road, a 500-m thoroughfare which branches off the Gurdaspur-Batala National Highway (NH), is barely 12-feet wide and at some places even less.

People complained that the road, sandwiched on both sides by chemist shops and pathological labs, was indeed narrow. Nobody heard them. To compound matters, a new road could not be constructed due to some technicalities. The Punjab Health Systems Corporation (PHSC) had planned a 60 -feet wide road starting from the rear of the hospital to the national highway. Like many government projects, this one too died a natural death.

Several years later, Raman Bahl, Chairman, PHSC, and an AAP leader, took up cudgels on behalf of the harassed and stressed people. He brought back a few departments in the guise of the Urban Community Health Centre (UCHC) at the old address. In January last year, people heaved a sigh of relief when the UCHC started functioning.

The hospital is being supervised by Assistant Civil Surgeon Dr Prabhjot Kalsi, in the absence of a regular Civil Surgeon. Painting a rosy picture of the Babri hospital, Kalsi says the mandatory 250 and 300 medicines are available in Babri and the UCHC, respectively, on a free-of-cost basis. “Some new departments like the Maternal and Child Care Wing will be constructed by May this year. A Patient Care Centre, too, is being established soon,” she says. She also lists out the OPDs that are functioning “successfully” at the UCHC.

The exigencies of being an employee do not allow her to speak much. She does not tell you of the vacancies at the Babri facility, including that of much-needed radiologists. There is just one radiologist and he is forced to shuttle between Babri and the Sub-Divisional Hospital at Batala. Earlier, residential quarters for emergency staff were located on the premises of the hospital. At the Babri facility, there are no such quarters. More often than not, the private rooms remain locked.

Punjab