Baghmara, July 1: Unhappy with the response from the Baghmara Civil Hospital (BCH) authorities despite their two-day sit in demonstration, the conglomerate of NGOs have decided to continue their agitation on Jul 7-8.
The two-day sit-in demonstration was organized by the GSU, ADE, GSMC, FKJGP, AHAM and AYWO of the district of South Garo Hills (SGH).
“We wanted to continue the protest into Monday and beyond but due to the other NGO leaders having prior commitments we will restart the agitation on Thursday and Friday next week,” said GSU president, Chuang Sangma.
The protest by the NGOs relates to the apparent abject condition of the Civil Hospital which is far from being hygienic despite being a hospital. Further they also demanded the appointment of a pediatrician and a gynecologist among other vacancies that have not been filled up by the Hospital.
Earlier, yesterday, the Medical Superintendent (MS) of BCH had tried to assure the protestors that efforts were on to resolve the matter.
“The MS had informed us that a proposal to uplift the hospital had already been sent to the National Health Mission (NHM) but we are unhappy as this may take years to be worked on. How are patients going to get used to such filth when it comes to their health for years to come. The situation is only likely to get worse,” added Chuang.
The NGOs had pointed to the unclean toilets, leaking roofs as well as lack of toilets for OPD visits while adding that even doctors and nurses were unhappy with the infrastructure provided to them.
“People come from all parts of the district to the BCH for their health issues. Imagine patients in wards having to move about because the roof is leaking. Is this how such an important and critical infrastructure is meant to work,” he added.
The NGOs added that their fight was for the betterment of facilities that are their right and every one of those that came, be it from the local NGO leadership, political parties joining us or our elders and friends, we all want the facilities to be in working and healthy condition. We will not stop until work starts to make things better,” added the NGO members.