Fourteen years ago, when construction on 300 bed super specialty hospital in North Kashmir’s Baramulla town started, it was portrayed by the officials as a dream medical project for the rural people.

Slowly, dreams attached to this new hospital have started fading and many believe that this hospital will take another two decades to complete. “For us it was a dream project,” said a senior doctor posted in Baramulla. “Presently, the district hospital is ill equipped and short of staff. The new 300 bed hospital could have proved a major boost to rural population. But, unfortunately its completion is being delayed,” he said, adding that North Kashmir needs a good medical institute with proper infrastructure and staff.

Locals too are disillusioned with the pace of work undergoing at the new hospital. “I don’t think this hospital will be completed in near future,” said Mohammad Afzal Wani, who lives close to the under construction new district hospital. “At the time of foundation, the officials had set a dead-line of five years for completion of the hospital, since then several dead lines have passed and hospital is still incomplete,” he said.

In the past 14 years, officials and politicians have been constantly projecting this hospital as a super specialty hospital equivalent to the Medical College. Now, people have apprehensions whether this hospital will have facilities equivalent to the district hospital that exists in the town. “Politicians and officials are deceiving people by claiming that this hospital will start functioning within next few months,” said Javid Ahmad Khan a resident of Baramulla. “So far 50 per cent work is still unfinished,” he said adding that government is not serious in making this hospital functional.

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