Nowhere to go: At Dheri Hasanabad health unit, expect what you see

Six rooms used as storage dump, dispensary lacks basic facilities.

RAWALPINDI:

A dilapidated building, locked but broken doors, an out-of-order tube-well and a doctor who is available for limited time only, paints a poignantly accurate picture of the treatment patients can expect at the Dheri Hassanabad Dispensary in the garrison city.

Offering minimal medical facilities, the dispensary which falls under the Chaklala Cantonment Board, built on over seven kanals, is in a shambles. Even the lawn is overrun with bushes.

“People living here are compelled to visit hospitals in the city for minor illnesses due to lack of health facilities at the dispensary,” said Mateen Khan, a resident of Hassanabad, while talking to The Express Tribune. The health centre is used mainly for vaccination.

Sajid Tareen’s wife, who was in labour, died on the way to DHQ because there was no doctor available at the health centre. “My wife would have been alive today had doctors been available at the centre that night,” he said.

Only one room out of seven in the dispensary is being used by the doctor. The other rooms are used as a storage dump by the sanitation staff.

Raja Fayyaz, a local resident, said, “The dispensary lacks facilities to cater to over 70,000 persons living in the area.” There is only one doctor who can’t be found after 4pm and people have to visit District Headquarters Hospital, Benazir Bhutto Hospital or Holy Family Hospital in case of emergency, he added.

The sanitation staff of the cantonment board come daily to mark their attendance and leave, Fayyaz commented.

Aware of the indifference of the authorities concerned, rent-a-car dealers wash their vehicles on the health centre’s lawn, taking advantage of the tube-well. Apparently whenever the dilapidated condition of the dispensary is highlighted by the media, the authorities blame the in-charge for inviting reporters.

He has already been served two show-cause notices when news about the dispensary appeared in media. Meanwhile, the 10 residential quarters constructed for the dispensary’s staff have been allotted to other employees of the board.

“The staffers are forced to live in rented houses. My salary is Rs10,000 and I’ve three children. With this meagre salary I barely fulfil my family’s basic needs, leave aside house rent,” said an official, requesting anonymity.   Chaklala Cantonment Board Secretary Sarwar Mehmood who looks after all the health centres under the board’s control, lives in the house meant for the dispensary in-charge. “This is the property of the cantonment board and it can be allocated to any board’s official,” he said. Everything is fine for the secretary and there is no problem.

“The tube-wells are operational and all kinds of medical facilities are being provided to patients and as far as renovation of the dispensary is concerned funds will soon be allocated,” he said. No renovation has been carried out in the last eight years which according to board officials is due to ‘shortage of funds’.

The date of the dispensary’s construction could not be confirmed from board officials. However, the elders of the area said that it was built in the mid-70s when Pakistan Peoples Party was in power.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 4^th, 2013.