No beds, docs for food poisoning victims in Bageshwar

Pithoragarh: Health centres in Bageshwar district were left struggling to admit and provide treatment to 250 people who fell ill with acute food poisoning after a wedding feast in Baste villag e in Bageshwar district. The incident has once again exposed the threadbare health facilities in the hills. In some health centres, patients were accommodated on the floor and administered glucose from bottles hung on a rope due to lack of glucose stands.

Fourteen primary health centres (PHCs), three community health centres (CHCs) and the district hospital in Bageshwar are grappling with shortage of medicine, equipment as well as doctors. Of 102 posts of doctors in the district, only 55 have been filled.

Families of the victims of food poisoning said that they were taken to CHC Kanda and CHC Kapkot on Friday and doctors had to work all night to treat the influx of patients. CHC Kanda has two doctors against 11 sanctioned posts while CHC Kapkot has four doctors against 12 sanctioned posts. Over 150 patients from Baste village were admitted to the nearest CHC in Berinag which has only 10 beds. A medical team was dispatched from Pithoragarh to provide treatment to the victims.

The district does not have a full-time chief medical officer (CMO) as well. Dinesh Pande, a social worker, said that any natural calamity or tragedy like the food poisoning incident repeatedly expose the tardy medical facilities but nothing is done.“Time and again, the issue of poor health facilities in the hills is raised but no action is taken. We are forced to resign ourselves to fate.”

Meanwhile, Congress Rajya Sabha MP from Almora Pradeep Tamta on Sunday lashed out at the state government for not starting air ambulance services in the area. “If the service had been started on time, innocent lives that were lost due to food poisoning could have been saved.”