The previous government spent Rs 22 crore on giving the Valpoi Community Health Centre a facelift, but while doctors have been rendering good service, power failures over the past one year have put patients’ lives at risk.
During the construction of the building, there was allegedly faulty electrical work done that is leading to frequent power failures. As a result patients and doctor are facing problems. Often doctors have to attend to patients with a handheld torch. Health sources said there is major fault in the electrical wiring system that has not been rectified.
At night due to the power failures patients face problems like fans not working, and have trouble even going to the toilet. This situation is already brought by hospital administration to GSIDC, the nodal agency that monitored the construction of the building, but so far nothing has been done by the agency to resolve the problem.
“Since the last couple of months we are facing this problem. We have informed this to GSIDC but received poor response. It’s difficult to attend casualties because of frequent power failures. It is a fact that our doctors often attend casualties with a handheld torch,” Dr Gajanan Naik, Health Officer said.
The Valpoi officials of the Electricity Department come to repair the fault, but say it is not their duty. It’s not our responsibility to handle the situation within the hospital premises, despite that due to the serious problems our staff are rendering service,” said Ramdas Salelkar, Assistant Engineer Electricity
Health Minister Francis D’Souza visited the hospital twice regarding KFD but ignored this matter. The visiting committee has also brought this matter to the notice of the health officials and GSIDC officials but has received no positive response. People from Sattari are unsatisfied with the manner in which the authorities are ignoring the hospital. The hospital was meant to procure health services for a population of 60,000. The number of patients attending the hospital OPD is increasing each day, despite the existence of 18 rural sub centres in Sattari taluka that doctors visit once a week.
