Bandipora, Jan 01: The digital X-Ray plant installed in new District Hospital Bandipora has been lying defunct from the last 20 days, forcing poor patients to travel long distances or cough up money in private clinics.
Locals said despite several pleas, the health department has not repaired or replaced the X-Ray machine, causing trouble to hundreds of patients who are forced to either go to expensive private clinics or travel long distances for getting an X-ray done.
Locals said that the District Hospital (DH) caters to patient-care of around 3 lakhs population in the area.
With no other machine available, the patients are facing a lot of hardships, the locals said the machine developed some fault 20 days ago but the hospital authorities have not been able to repair it since, leaving them dependent on private diagnostic centers.
The patients especially critical patients are facing lots of problems due to lack of the facility inside the hospital,” said Gh Rasool who was attending an emergency patient.
Locals blamed hospital authorities of carelessness and held them responsible for the damage caused to the X-ray machine.
An employees at DH Bandipora said that the cost for repairing the machine is around 80, 000, however, the hospital authorities are reluctant to pay this amount which is why the machine is lying defunct.
