Water scarcity hits Shikaripur dialysis unit

Shikaripur: If the drought is driving  farmers to suicide elsewhere in the state, in Shikaripur, patients suffering from kidney failure are not able to go in for dialysis at the Government General Hospital, which is desperately short of water.

Around 40 patients, nearly all of them from below poverty line (BPL) families, come in for  dialysis at the hospital every week. The procedure is performed free of cost with Rs. 150 collected per session as  maintenance fee from  BPL patients and Rs. 400 from others. But the dialysis has been stopped since March 10 at the hospital, which otherwise operates three dialysis units in three shifts every day, leaving the poor patients no choice but  to opt for the procedure at a cost of Rs. 2,000 a session at private hospitals in Shivamogga and Mangaluru.

A social activist, Narayana, is concerned that travelling to Shivamogga or Mangaluru for dialysis may worsen the health of patients and  claims the hospital  has rescheduled the delivery dates of pregnant women as well for want of water.

The 150-bed Government General Hospital, which caters to patients from Sorab, Shiralkoppa and Honnali in Davangere district and a few taluks  of Haveri district, needs 25,000 litres of water every day. But its borewell dried up on February 9 and although the management got another  drilled on Monday, it is not supplying water yet for want of of a power connection. Presently, the hospital is making do with around 8,000 litres of water for its emergency medical services drawn from the borewell reserved for its staff residential quarters.

When contacted,  medical director of the hospital, Srinivas G, said the electricity connection for the new borewell would be provided soon  and dialysis  resumed after testing its water. He claimed no delivery dates were rescheduled.