Rangiya health centre not equipped to handle tragedy

RANGIYA: It was a terrific effort put in by locals and medical staff at the Rangiya Community Health Centre to treat victims of the train disaster on Sunday night. However, the doctors complained that the health centre was largely ill-equipped to handle patients after a disaster of this magnitude.
While the seriously injured passengers were admitted to the Rangiya Community Health Centre at midnight, the hospital had to refer two cases to the Gauhati Medical College Hospital because of the dearth of the sufficient emergency treatment facilities.
"We had only 30 beds in the hospital. It was a challenge for us to treat all the injured passengers last night," said a medical staff who had to work overnight to attend to patients.
The superintendent said he had to spend the night in the hospital for monitoring the treatment given to 38 injured passengers. "We referred two seriously injured patients to GMCH as there was no sufficient medical facility to treat them," said Anil Chandra Talukdar, superintendent of the hospital.
The superintendent said he provided the first aid to seriously injured passengers Krishna Dutta Chaudhury and Maya Rani Dutta Chaudhury before referring them to the city hospital.
The hospital has no facility for CT scan, MRI and other facilities, which are available in bigger hospitals.
Although total 40 passengers were admitted to the hospital, majority of them received the first aid and railway authorities have taken them to their hospital in Rangiya on Monday morning.
A local resident said there was an extreme need to upgrade the Rangia health centre and field referral unit as it served the entire Rangia sub-division.
"The hospital was supposed to become a civil hospital but no work has been done in this regard till now," said Khalekuj Zaman, a pharmacist of the hospital.