OUR CORRESPONDENT
TEZPUR: The Kanaklata Civil Hospital, which been providing yeoman service over the last one century to the people of the northern belt of undivided Darrang district, is presently plagued by a number of problems due to alleged indifferent attitude of the authority concerned.
Kanaklata Civil Hospital came into being in the later part of the 18th century and with a humble start of an operation theatre christened as 'Victoria Memorial Operation Theatre' in 1905 as an outcome of the good thinking of some selfless dedicated people of the society. It is now crippled with a lot of problems. Senior journalist and social worker Dr. Nathmal Tibrewala mentioned that during 1919, for the development of the Civil Hospital, the then four prestigious Marwari citizens - Ganesh Das Vilashi Ram (Tibrewala), Mahansing Meghraj Rai Bahadur, Hajarimal Multanmal and Bharmal Surajmal - donated Rs. 300 each for erecting fencing around the Kanaklata Civil Hospital, for which their names have been engraved on a bronze plate in a cemented pillar which still exists in the corner of boundary wall of the Kanaklata Civil Hospital.
After the Burmese War, a peace celebration committee was formed on July 19, 1919 under the aegis of CK Das as secretary of the dispensary committee which was connected with the Kanaklata Civil Hospital. According to sources, the land was also supposed to have been donated by Ganeshdas Bilasiram Tibrewala's family because right from Kanaklata Civil Hospital boundary up to Mahav Dham Civil Hospital road turning, the whole plot of land belonged to the Tibrewala family.
Dr Tibrewala said that they felt sad when they learnt that the hospital was plagued by myriad problems and was failing to meet the needs of the poor people. It has been alleged that though in the ongoing COVID situation, the civil hospital had to play a major role as a non-COVID hospital, it could not do that due to the absence of required doctors and medical specialists and the alleged negligence of a section of the existing medical staff.
Kanaklata Civil Hospital has been a focal point for reliable healthcare service for the poor people of the entire district. However, this 202-bedded Civil Hospital in the real sense is not being able to provide adequate support to the patients. While taking to this correspondent, one patient said that doctors here never wish to take minimum risk even for a minor case and they straight away refer the patients to Guwahati.
On the other hand, exposing certain serious anomalies and mismanagement in the Blood Bank of the Kanaklata Civil Hospital, people seeking blood for their patients alleged that they were irked with the blood bank staff because many times they refuse to provide blood showing certain baseless reasons. The distressed people also alleged that though blood is donated to the blood bank through blood donation camps selflessly organized by different NGOs, people approaching for blood even for serious patients are allegedly refused.
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