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Sunderbani, Nowshera residents seek trauma hospital
Shariq Majeed
Tribune News Service

Sunderbani (Rajouri), January 2
Even as the killer highway in this part of the border district continues to snuff out precious lives month after month, the successive state governments have turned a blind eye towards the need of a trauma hospital having a blood bank here.

A few days back, a person, identified as Satyam Gupta, suffered serious injuries in a road accident near here while he was on way to Poonch from Jammu. Bleeding profusely, Satyam was shifted to a local hospital here where doctors attending on him asked his family to arrange six units of O negative blood compatible to the patient. Since the hospital here lacks blood bank, the family tried hard to arrange the blood of the otherwise rare group and managed to get it from Jammu. He, however, died an hour before the requisite volume of blood was transported here. Doctors felt had there been a trauma hospital his life could have been saved.

Even though the state government admits that this area is highly prone to road accidents, it has failed to set up a trauma hospital. A former Chief Minister who took pride in constructing "quality" hospitals across the state during his term admitted that this area was highly accident prone to accidents and announced a trauma hospital, but never executed the word made to the people here.

The locals here said on an average, there were around 12-15 fatal accidents every month and since there was no trauma hospital in the area, a majority of the injured die. Though doctors at the sub-district hospital here manage to treat persons with minor injuries, but when it comes to treating critically injured patients they simply give up, they added.

The locals added most of the critically injured patients die on the way to the district hospital (about 80 km away) in Rajouri or to the well-equipped hospitals in Jammu. "To worsen the things, the sub-district hospital here doesn't have ortho-paedicians and blood bank,” said Manoj Gupta, president of Sewa Bharti, an NGO.

Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP), Nowshera, RK Bhat, under whose area of responsibility Sunderbani area falls, confirmed that the Sunderbani and Nowshera areas are highly accident prone. "As per our records, every month 12-15 road accidents occur in these areas and of these 4-5 are fatal,” the ASP said.

Director, health services, Jammu province, Dr Jasbir Singh, admitted that these areas needed a trauma hospital. "These areas along the Jammu-Poonch national highway are highly accident prone and need a trauma hospital. We have recommended a trauma hospital at Sunderbani and are awaiting nod from the state government,” he said.