SKARDU, June 10 The residents of Roundu valley have demanded health facility in the far-flung area of Baltistan.

During a protest demonstration, they blocked the Skardu-Gilgit road in protest against shortage of doctors and lack of health facilities in the region. The protestors assembled at Thrower and blocked the road for four hours.

Locals said that the protestors were raising slogans against the health department of Gilgit-Baltistan and were demanding health facilities at the Thowar hospital.

The protestors said that there was only a ten-bed hospital in the area along with two dispensaries but there was no doctor and medicines available there even in the 21st century. “It is a human dilemma,” a local said.

“Owing to the unavailability of doctors and medical facilities in Thrower hospital, when accidents happen in the region, the injured are taken to Skardu hospital in private vehicles, which is 120 kilometres away,” the local said.

The ambulance at the hospital had been out of station for the last several months, the protestors said. Recently five people sustained injuries during an accident.

Out of them two passed away due to absent of doctor and first aid facilities in the area while the three were shifted to Skardu hospital where they were under-treatment.

The locals withdrew their protest after the district health officer assured them to solve their problems.

Meanwhile, PPP local leader Mohammad Iqbal Dilber in a statement said that sub-division Roundu had a population of over 60,000 and they needed health facilities immediately.

Due to unavailability of doctors and treatment facilities, he said, the people of the region were facing problems. The whole population was being covered by only one doctor who had been currently sent for training.

Due to lack of doctors and unavailability of treatment facilities, several patients had lost their lives, he added.

MET OFFICE The Met Office has closed three of its offices in Baltistan region and strength of its employees had been reduced to 17 from 30, sources said

The offices located at Baghicha and Kharmang had been closed and shifted to Skardu earlier but now the office located in Skardu city has also been shifted to the Skardu airport area.

Radio Pakistan Skardu's news section had been deprived of the facility to broadcast local weather for the last several days after the reported closer of the Met Office, the sources claimed.