Sunderbani residents seek trauma hospital
Shariq Majeed
Tribune News Service

Sunderbani (Rajouri), February 25
A few days back Sham Lal received multiple injuries in a road accident near here. Bleeding profusely, Lal was shifted to a local hospital here where doctors attending on him asked his family to arrange three units of O negative blood compatible to 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. However, Lal died an hour before the requisite volume of blood was transported here. Doctors felt Lal’s life could have been saved at a trauma hospital where blood bank is a must.

Even though the state government admits that this area is highly prone to road accidents, it has failed to set up a trauma hospital.

The locals here said on an average, in a month, there are around 12-15 deadly accidents and since there are no trauma hospitals in the area, majority of the injured die.

Though doctors at the sub district hospital here manage to treat the 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) here or to the well-equipped hospitals in Jammu.

The residents said even the Chief Minister during his visit here had announced the setting up of a trauma hospital, as the area is highly accident-prone. They rued that it seems that he too has forgotten about the announcement made by him.

“This area is highly accident-prone. Every month on an average around 12-15 road accidents occur here and scores of precious human lives are lost. To worsen the things, the sub district hospital here doesn’t have orthopaedicians and blood bank,” said Chander Mohan Sharma, a local youth leader and a resident.

“To minimise the loss of precious human lives, the government should set up a trauma hospital here. Even Chief Minister has announced a trauma hospital for this accident-prone area.”

Rajouri chief medical officer Dr Tilak Raj Gupta admitted that this area of the border district witnesses a high average of road accidents.

However, he said setting up a trauma hospital here is a policy decision and has to be taken by the state government.