The people of Uttarakhand are still deprived from a true multi speciality eye hospital. Even after a full one year has passed after the inauguration of Gandhi Centenary Eye Hospital (GCEH) in Dalanwala, the super speciality facilities have not started yet in the hospital. Built at a cost of Rs 23 crore this hospital was inaugurated on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti last year.

lack of budget coupled with indifferent attitude of state administration has ensured that super specialty services in eye care are yet to start here. The apathetic attitude of the officials towards this hospital could be gauged from the fact that tender for purchase of modern machines and equipment for the hospital has been cancelled four times in last one year. The hospital administration first of all sent a proposal of Rs 15 Crore for the purchase of machines but it was not accepted after which proposals of Rs 10 Crore and Rs 7 Crore were sent by the hospital but they too were not accepted.

The hospital has now scaled down its demand to only Rs 2 Crores for maintaining bare minimum facilities. The doctors of the hospital admit that the earlier plans to set up ultramodern Operation Theatre (OT) with lamellar air flow facility and super specialty services in opthalmology would not be fulfilled with proper budgetary support.

The Chief Medical Superintendent (CMS) of the hospital Dr RC Nagpal said that the hospital administration has sent its proposal for budget to the office of Director General (DG) health. He accepted that the budget proposals were scaled down from time to time. Dr Nagpal claimed that OPD of the hospital is serving 80-90 patients a day while four to five cataract operations are done daily by the ophthalmologists of the hospital.

The official negligence for the GCEH is worrying as the hospital took more than nine years to get completed after the then Chief Minister Major General (retd) B C Khanduri laid its foundation stone in the year 2007.