GMC without drinking water, people forced to buy bottles from outside

Tahir Mushtaq

JAMMU, April 25: Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) is one of the major hospitals in Jammu, catering the vast population of the state, but it fails to fulfill some of the basic needs of the people coming from different part of the state. 

One such glaring example which shows how much the department is concern about common masses, is unavailability of safe drinking water in the hospital. The concern administration has installed about eight water coolers in the hospital, but nowadays there are only one or two coolers in working condition. 

Besides this there are two more water coolers being installed by some private organization which are outside the hospital. Everyday thousands of patients visit GMCH in Out Patient Department (OPD) and In Patient Department (IPD) for treatment in different departments functioning in the hospital. 

The patients from new and old emergency block, emergency ward besides recovery ward, digester ward, emergency lab, x-ray room all depends upon the tap water of emergency canteen to fulfill their drinking water requirement, which is not safe for the patients. 

On the condition of anonymity, one of the staff member said that the department is neglecting this thing from the last long time, but as the summer season begins patients have to face hardship if the hospital administration still not taking any concrete steps in this regard. 

Deepak Gupta a patient said that in the summer days we have facing difficulties as there is on such arrangements for safe drinking water by the hospital administration. 

“Most of the patients don’t drink water in the premises and prefer bottled water. What is administration doing”, he added. 

Despite repeated attempts, Medical Superintendent (MS) GMCH, Dr Romesh Gupta could not be contacted as he did not pick the phone.