Anti Rabies clinic at SMHS abandoned, no permanent employee appointed since 2002
Srinagar: Though 17 years have elapsed since the anti-rabies clinic was set up at the ‘tertiary care’ Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) hospital, the authorities have utterly failed to appoint a single permanent employee to deal with the flow of patients on daily basis.
Officials at Anti-Rabies clinic said that the department of Community Medicine Government Medical College Srinagar established anti-rabies clinic separately at SMHS to deal with rabies patients but no permanent employee has been appointed since 2002 to tackle the flow of patients.
Official figures have revealed that 30-40 new dog bite cases were being reported on daily basis while as the hospital sees 150-200 such patients on daily basis.
However, officials at Anti-rabies clinic said that the employees from other hospitals or sections were being called to tackle the flow of rabies patients as there is no single permanent employee available.
“We manage to run this clinic on our own as this pivotal clinic has been abandoned since it was set up separately,” they said.
Officials further said that rabies being a “hundred percent fatal” disease and needs serious and instant attention but the lack of full time employee here can add to the sufferings of patients.
They said that the clinic also sans proper space, thus resulting in hardships while dealing with the patients.
“The rush of patients remains huge on daily basis but the lack of space here is also causing hardships to the employees as well as to the patients,” they added.
They said they approached to the higher ups in this regard but nothing was done so far.
Principal GMC, Dr Parvaiz Ahmad Shah said that the department under the leadership of Financial Commissioner, Health and Medical Education, Atal Dulloo was “keen to resolve the issue of dearth of overall manpower”.
“We are on it and hopefully the issue will be resolved soon,” he added. (KNS)
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