Srinagar: Bizarre it may seem, but the reality is that the Valley’s lone Bone and Joints Hospital in Barzulla is functioning in a building which has been marked as ‘unsafe’ by the Medical Council of India (MCI), post floods in 2014.

Insiders revealed that the MCI has termed the hospital building as ‘unsafe’ after massive floods hit the valley in 2014, but the shocking news is that the hospital is still functioning from the same building, ‘red marked’ by MCI thus risking the lives of hundreds of souls within the hospital.

Sources while quoting the report by the MCI said that the team has termed the building “unfit for use,” however, as of now, the hospital administration continues to use the building as the government has failed to provide any alternate accommodation or building.

For face-lifting, sources are saying that World Bank is going to provide all the funding, however, so far nothing has been done in that direction as well.

“Due to the constraints of space, the expert team had decided to go vertically up, instead of spreading the infrastructure horizontally, but so far, nobody has paid any attention towards the same, not even a bit” sources said.

With callous approach of the government, the hospital authorities are letting the operations take place in the same building, because there are no alternatives provided for its functioning.

“In order to avoid chaos and confusion that might occur due to shutting down of the hospital, or even shifting it to some other place, the authorities did not pay any heed to the red flag raised my MCI, and continues to function from the building declared as ‘unfit’, sources said.

The hospital since decades has not witnessed any renovation or face-lift of any kind. The hospital, as of now, is also struggling with the poor drainage system, which gets choked in all the seasons especially during winters, said a source.

When contacted Medical Superintended (MS), Bone and Joints Hospital Dr A. R. Badoo, while admitting that there are infrastructural issues at the hospital said that the ‘concerned agencies are on it, and soon the process of face-lifting of the entire hospital will start.”

On the issue of poor drainage system that in place in the hospital, MS said that he has approached concerned authorities several times, but of no use, “I wrote letters to the concerned agencies, but they seem to be callous,” he said.

Guest