Death of soldier’s son due to pathetic health services, a blot on the image of the State

PIONEER EDGE NEWS SERVICE | Dehradun

Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Karan Mahara has said that the death of one and half year old son of an armed forces personnel of Chamoli posted in Jammu and Kashmir exposes the pathetic health services in Uttarakhand. Interacting with the media persons at Rajiv Bhawan here on Thursday, Mahara said that it is shocking that the wife of the army personnel took her ailing son to five different hospitals of Chamoli and Bageshwar but the pathetic health system could not save the life of the child.

  He said that it is unfortunate that there was a long delay in the arrangement of the ambulance when the child was referred from Bageshwar to Government Medical College, Haldwani. Terming the incident as a blot on the image of the State, the PCC president said that it would have an adverse impact on the morale of a large number of armed forces personnel of the State posted in different parts of the country.

He said that on one hand the Pushkar Singh Dhami government boasts of making a slew of announcements for the welfare of armed forces personnel and on the other hand , a soldier’s son dies in the State in absence of medical facilities.

 Mahara said that the health services in the mountainous areas have been handed over to the private players in PPP mode due to which the health services are in shambles.  The district hospitals have become referral centres where there are neither doctors nor medicines and other facilities for the patients, he said.