Located in low-lying area, Hisar Civil Hospital faces problem of choked sewer lines

The Maharaja Agrasen Civil Hospital in Hisar town on the Delhi-Sirsa road is faced with sewerage problems. With the hospital located in the low-lying area, its sewer lines gets chocked quite frequently, forcing the hospital authorities to keep a number of toilets on the complex locked.

During a visit to the hospital, The Tribune found seven toilets meant for both men and women locked in the Emergency and other wards and the waiting area. Health officials say the sewerage connection to the civil hospital is not efficient, and in the rainy season, it becomes troublesome for patients as well as the staff to even enter the hospital as the open campus in front of the building remains heavily flooded.

Since the toilets have been locked for past many weeks, attendants and even patients visiting the Outdoor Patients Department (OPD) have to ease themselves out in the open, creating another problem of cleanliness on the hospital premises. Patients who need to give urine samples for laboratory tests are at the receiving end; many of them said it was unbearable for anyone to enter the toilets.

Though there has been a long-pending proposal to shift the hospital to a new site, the government has not even transferred the land earmarked for the new building till now. There is no deadline as to when the construction of the new building will begin and when they would be able to shift out of this old building, which was built in 1957.

Admitting the problems related to sewerage, Dr Reena, Principal Medical Officer (PMO), says they have taken up the matter with officials of the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED). “We have requested them to lay a more efficient sewerage line so that we could get rid of the recurring problem of choked sewer lines. We deposited Rs 11 lakh for this about six months ago. Now, PHED officials say that the work is in progress,” she says, adding that they are not sure when the ongoing work would be completed.

Notably, the civil hospital is located in the 100-metre radius of the protected monument Hisar fort which is protected by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and thus no construction/alteration is allowed at the present hospital site. The complex is on the land that is about four feet lower than the surface of the main road in front of the hospital. “No construction of floors is allowed. Thus it is not possible to bring in and operate new medical facilities and add more beds in the existing capacity of 200-bed,” says Dr Reena. She however adds that they have full medical and para-medical staff as of now and there was also no shortage of medicines.