JAMMU: Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh on Saturday visited the government medical college at Jammu to enquire about the health condition of the 67 people injured after the cloudburst in the Chashoti village of Kishtwar, who have been shifted here for treatment.
Soon after returning from the devastated village, Dr. Jitendra Singh visited the hospital here.
The Minister, who also represents Kishtwar in his parliamentary constituency, announced the setting up of the MP’s Help-Desk in the Government Medical College Hospital. The desk would be attending to the requirements of the needy injured persons, providing them all the required items, including medicine, food, etc., and arranging even for their transport. The Help Desk will be directly in touch with the offices of Principal GMC, Jammu.
Dr. Jitendra Singh went around the patients one by one, inquired about their health and being a professional medical person himself, he was also seen time to time providing some advice and suggestions to the treating doctors.
Dr. Jitendra Singh said all arrangements have been made not only to fully provide required treatment to each of the patients, but even to arrange for their referral outside Jammu, if required. However, he said, luckily, there is no such patient who requires to be shifted outside.
Later while addressing the media, flanked by Principal Government Medical College, Dr. Ashutosh Gupta, and local MLA Arvind Gupta, Dr. Jitendra Singh said, in total, there were 67 patients admitted but after he took the round and had a discussion with the Principal and the treating doctors, it was decided that at least 15 out of them could be discharged today itself, which means that the remaining number of injured patients from the Kishtwar cloudburst disaster tragedy will now be limited to 52 in the GMC.
Dr. Jitendra Singh said, most of the patients were quite settled and luckily none of them had any head injury or any vital organ injury because most of the injury was caused by the debris or the material, which was mostly muddy.
He said that the gathering of about 2,000 people at the time of the catastrophe could have been because of a long weekend holiday with the Independence Day and the festival of Janmashtami. Most of the persons visiting the shrine on that day happened to be from the districts of Jammu, Reasi and Udhampur because most of the locals had already completed the darshan. He also attributed the heavy casualty to the fact that the site where the cloudburst happened, there was a community kitchen and many of the people were either having their food or some of them after having finished their food, were getting ready to leave for the Yatra.
Agencies