December 17, 2006	Sunday	Ziqa'ad 25, 1427

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SIALKOT, Dec 16: Most of veterinary hospitals and dispensaries in the district are faced with hosts of problems, including the shortage of staff, crumbling buildings and absence of required facilities to treat animals.

This ugly state of affairs forces owners to take their ailing animals as far away as Gujranwala, which is not only a costly affair but also causes an immense inconvenience to them.

Dilapidating buildings of veterinary hospitals in Daska tehsil speak volume for apathy of the Livestock department.

People have expressed grave concern over the crumbling structure of more than a century-old building of Buddha Goraya veterinary hospital, the only facility available for the provision of health services to thousands of cattle of the local people and scores of others from surrounding villages.

Several years ago, the buildings department had declared its structure dangerous.

Only a two-member hospital staff provides treatment facility to the ailing cattle in the open, taking no risk to work in the rundown building.

The Livestock department seems to have turned away its eyes to the problems faced by cattle-breeders and the staff.

In addition, most of owners are forced to cover a distance of 30 to 45 km, mainly due to the shortage of staff and medicines, for the treatment of their animals. Long travel often results in the death of a good number of animals due to their critical condition.

Despite repeated appeals by local landlords and cattle-breeders, high-ups of the department concerned have never bothered to visit the hospital.

Similarly, the veterinary hospital staff in Satrah union council, whose three rooms had collapsed sometime back, is performing its duty in a dried pond. The British government had established this veterinary hospital in 1855.

For some two years, this hospital had been running without a vet. On the pressing demand of the local people, the district government recently made a temporary appointment of a vet from Wadala Sindhuaan veterinary hospital. The people complain that the vet pays a brief visit to hospital.

Shortage of medicines is another chronic problem. A Rs20,000 annual budget is too meager to meet expenditures of the hospital.

They have urged the provincial and district governments to allocate sufficient funds for the provision of medicines and repair of buildings of veterinary hospitals in the district.