Srinagar, July 23: Stray dog menace in hospitals across the Srinagar city has caused much inconvenience to
the patients and their bystanders.
Dozens of dogs are seen at rest or in sleep outside the outpatient department’s buildings in SMHS, JVC,
Chest Disease, Lal Ded and other hospitals. “These stray dogs roaming freely almost everywhere in the city
are causing undue inconvenience to residents. They dog menace has not even spared the hospitals here,”
Mukhtar Ahmad, one of the senior citizen of Batmallo said.
60 -year-old Habibullah of Bemina visited the JVC hospital to see his ailing relative undergoing treatment
there. Dogs annoyed him as he waited outside the hospital building. “The insanitary condition is the main
cause which attracts dogs here. There is no check on it. It is dangerous for patients and the employees as
well,” Habibullah said.
Mohmmad Aslam, a patient from Jawharnagr, who visited the SMHS hospital for an ear check-up, said the
hospital administration must ‘immediately wake up, realize and act’ on the ground. “I have been coming
here for a couple of days and observed the same condition. No employee here bothers to turn away the
dogs, which is very unfortunate,” he said.
The condition is not better at Bone and Joint hospital Barzullah here.
Hundreds of patients visit the hospital, but dozens of stray dogs there annoy them.
Aliya, who attended her sister from Srinagar’s Rajbagh area, said, “There is no check on the presence of dogs
that cause fear among the female attendants when they go out to buy medicines.”
“Is this a hospital or street dog site?” Alima, who accompanied her ailing mother here in chest deases
hospital asked. “They usually feed on the biomedical waste and this is going from bad to worse with each
passing day.”
She said the hospital administration should take appropriate steps or approach the concerned government
authorities to avoid any dog bite incident inside the hospital compound.
One of the officials of the health department said that the hospital administration ‘cannot stop the dogs
from entering the hospital compounds’.
“It is a public place and dogs also gather; it is the responsibility of the Srinagar Municipal Corporation to get
the dogs out,” he said, adding that the Corporation sometimes catch the dogs but “not so often”.
“Unless the Corporation would not work on it proactively, the mess will be there,” he said.
Meanwhile, one of the officials of the Srinagar Municipal Corporation said that the corporation would look
into the presence of stray dogs in the hospital premises. (KNS)
