Residents of Banjar and its surrounding areas in Kullu district continue to wait for the completion of a new Civil Hospital building, a project that has now been delayed by over five years.
Due to the prolonged delay in the construction of the hospital building, local people are being provided medical services at a dilapidated old building.
The new hospital was envisioned to significantly upgrade healthcare facilities in the region. While it was upgraded from a 50-bed facility to a 100-bed hospital during the tenure of the previous BJP government, its new building was yet to be constructed.
The current administration had promised to accelerate the construction work and provide excellent health services, the progress on the ground had been sluggish.
At present, the Civil Hospital is functioning from an old dilapidated building. The walls of the building have developed cracks and there is no sufficient seating space for the staff and patients. The lack of proper facilities forces residents to travel around 55 km to the Regional Hospital in Kullu for treatment.
An acute shortage of specialist doctors at the Banjar hospital adds to the problems of patients from Banjar, Sainj, Balichowki and Gadagushaini areas in the Seraj valley of Mandi district, who depend on it for their primary healthcare. In the absence of specialist doctors, many patients are compelled to visit the Indira Gandhi Medical College (IGMC) and Hospital in Shimla.
Local MLA Surender Shourie had voiced the concerns of his constituency people that Banjar had consistently been neglected in healthcare development. He had repeatedly raised the issue of the delay in the construction of the hospital building. He alleged that the state government had taken no concrete steps to expedite the work.
According to Dr Neelam Sharma, Block Medical Officer (BMO) of Banjar, around 85 per cent of the construction of the new building had been completed and only a few tasks, including the installation of roof, was pending.