Dang's 140-bed, six-ward `referral hospital' is a hospital only in name. Medical services are hard to come by: the posts of chief medical officer, civil surgeon, opthalmologist, anaesthetist, radiologist and pathologist have been vacant for years together. Essential machines, like the electro-cardiogram, incubator, X-ray machine and suction machines, aren't operational either, sources say, adding that the hospital also faces frequent shortages of dressing material, essential and even life-saving drugs.

Ironically, Resident Medical Officer Dr R K Sonkar claims that the hospital had ``adequate medical facilities to treat patients''. In the same breath, however, he admits that it lacks a blood bank, a pathology laboratory, an intensive-care unit, an emergency room and even an air-conditioned room. Why just the specialised personnel or facilities: a walk around the hospital shows the children's ward has just one tubelight and no fans. The toilets are unclean. No drinking water is available at the hospital either: patients have to collect water from the nearby wells.

``We've sought transfers'', say some doctors, talking to Express Newsline on condition of anonymity. ``We can't do anything here. No operations are possible without an anaesthetist; basic investigations aren't possible without a pathologist.''

The hospital seems to be caught in a vicious circle. Because there are no facilities, few doctors want to work here; former zilla panchayat president Kamalaben says the condition of the hospital is so because no doctors want to work here.

District Collector J P Gupta seems to agree. Says he, ``The (medical) posts are vacant because no one wants to come to the Dangs. Local MLA and Congress president Madhubhai Bhoye, however, blames the ruling BJP for the civil hospital's ``pathetic condition'', adding, ``I've raised the issue in the Assembly, but there's been no change.''

Strangely enough, both Gupta and Bhoye claim financial constraints are not responsible for the hospital's state. ``I've ordered the public works department to repair and whitewash the hospital within a month'', says the collector.