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Poor health infra bane of Lahaul residents

MANDI: Health institutions in the tribal district of Lahaul-Spiti are facing an acute shortage of employees and other facilities. Residents have been urging the state government to fill the vacant posts of health staff for long, but no steps have been initiated so far.

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Dipender Manta

Tribune News Service

Mandi, January 21

Health institutions in the tribal district of Lahaul-Spiti are facing an acute shortage of employees and other facilities. Residents have been urging the state government to fill the vacant posts of health staff for long, but no steps have been initiated so far.

Sudarshan Jaspa, a Zila Parishad member from Lahaul-Spiti, has now written a letter to the chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) apprising the latter of the situation.

In the letter, Jaspa said the tribal district constituted 24.85 per cent of the total area of the state. It was the largest of 12 districts of Himachal in terms of the area and the 17th largest district in the country.

Rugged mountainous terrain, extremely harsh climatic conditions accompanied by heavy snowfall during winter have severely affected the living conditions of the residents of the district. Due to heavy snowfall, the district remained cut off from the rest of the world during winter.

Jaspa said poor medical facilities in the district amounted to the denial of the right to life as enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution and also amounted to discrimination against the ST population of the district.

He said health services in Lahaul-Spiti were being provided through a network of 36 sub-centres, 16 primary health centres, three community health centres and the regional hospital at Keylong.

The total sanctioned posts of medical and paramedical staff were 445, of which 225 were vacant. There were only 27 medical officers as against the sanctioned posts of 49. All seven posts of specialist doctors were vacant. There was only one dental surgeon and seven posts were vacant. Of the 30 posts of staff nurse, 11 were vacant. There was no laboratory technician in the district, though the sanctioned strength was 16. This clearly pointed towards poor healthcare facilities in the district, he said.

Jaspa has urged the NHRC to issue directions to the state government to take necessary steps to improve health care infrastructure in the district and fill all vacant posts at the earliest.

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