Adm bars media to report the mess
Arvind Sharma
In sharp contrast to the government’s claims of providing best healthcare services to the people, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, the seeping rooftop, poor sanitation and non-functional ACs in the Emergency Ward of Government Medical College and Hospital (GMC&H), Jammu, tell a different story.
After repeated calls/appeals by the people, the team of Northlines visited the hospital and found that the rooftop of the Emergency ward of Government Medical College and Hospital (GMC&H), Jammu, just adjacent to ECG room was leaking profusely.
The authorities, as a cover up and to avoid public wrath, had put a big dustbin beneath the leaking portions of the rooftop. Not only this, the Northlines team, on visit to the premier health institute of the Jammu region, also found that many sections in the centrally Air Conditioned Emergency ward of the GMC were cut off from the central AC plant.
Reliable sources informed the Northlines that the central AC plant and several distribution points of the AC plant have not been maintained/serviced since long.
“This is causing a lot of problems to the patients in the hot and humid conditions,” they said.
They said in some portions of the Emergency ward of the GMC, the AC plant “is non-functional, while in some other areas the plant is almost ineffective due to non-maintenance pending for a long time.”
What is more surprising in this episode is misbehaviour and intimidation by the hospital staff with the scribe while taking the videos of the mess. They snatched the mobile phone and threatened police action while justifying with vague arguments.
The correspondent of the Northlines was also produced before the GMC Police Post stating that the “press personnel are not allowed inside the hospital premises”.
“You cannot report such things in the media,” the authorities told the Nothlines.
The correspondent was also warned of dire consequences if the newspaper does such things in future, they said.
In this regard, the Medical Superintendent of the GMC, ADS Manhas when contacted by the Northlines said the media is not barred from entering hospital premises.
“It is only the photographers and the video journalists who are barred from visiting the hospital premises,” the Medical Superintendent of the GMC told the Northlines.
“This we have done so that the functioning of the hospital does not suffer and the health services are not hampered,” he said.
Meanwhile, the sources informed that the concerned authorities have repeatedly been requesting in writing to the mechanical wing of the GMC to check the seepages at different points in not only the Emergency ward but also at some other points in the hospital.
“We have also written to them several times to make the central AC plant functional in the Emergency ward of the GMC,” they said.
Notably, the GMC hospital is the premier tertiary referral hospital to serve the entire Jammu region and has a full complement of services in various branches of surgery and medicine.
