Anantnag: Much to their embarrassment and inconvenience, both men and women patients and their attendants are forced to share a single doorless washroom, with only curtains in the name of privacy, here at the Government Medical College (GMC) Hospital, Anantnag.
This situation is despite the fact that the washroom facility was shifted to a new building only a few years ago.
The new building has two washroom blocks, one in the Out Patient Department (OPD) and another in the Medical Block. The one in the OPD, as per sources, is in pathetic condition with broken doors and clogged commodes.
“It remains closed most of the time. In fact it was opened only recently after remaining closed for months,” the sources said.
The one in the Medical Block has two sections – for Men and Women. “The Women’s section, months back, developed a snag and has remained closed ever since, leaving only the Men’s section open to use for patients as well as the attendants,” the sources said.
This section, however, has no doors and the only thing maintaining privacy are cloth curtains. Kashmir Reader talked to some attendants, both men and women, who said that it was embarrassing and insulting to use these washrooms.
“Anyone can walk on you while you are using the washroom. I was embarrassed to death when a male attendant lifted the curtain while I was using the washroom and obviously it was not his mistake,” a female attendant, who had a family member admitted at the hospital, told Kashmir Reader.
Others had similar stories to tell. People are questioning how the bathrooms have deteriorated to such extent in a few years and why the administration was looking the other way while all this was happening right under their nose.
“It is not a new thing. This has been happening for quite a while now. The washrooms were properly functional only for a few months after the new block was thrown open and ever since the story has been such,” the sources in the hospital said.
Kashmir Reader talked to Dr Iqbal Sofi, Medical Superintendent of the hospital, who acknowledged that the washrooms at the hospital were in bad shape.
“It’s not a matter of one washroom block. I joined recently and after seeing the condition I approached the government and was given a go-ahead on getting the issue fixed,” Sofi said, adding that tenders were floated by the R&B department and now work is being carried out.
He said that the contractors were carrying out the work in one block at a time. “In two days, one of the blocks will be completed and it will be thrown open for the public. Then the work on other block, which remains closed as of now, will be taken up,” he said.

Suhail A Shah