Mir Farhat
SRINAGAR, Jan 17: With the last year’s September floods leaving the Valley’s SMHS hospital crippled, the Government has failed to restore the premier medical facility for the thousands of patients who visit here.
The officials said that hospital had suffered damage to its wards, furniture and equipment to the tune of Rs 200 crores. Vital machinery like three CT scans, two MRIs, Ultrasounds, Doppler, X-ray plants, Echo, EEG, Dialysis unit, Operation theaters, Intensive Care Unit, Oxygen plant and Blood bank were totally damaged and majority of the equipment is yet to be restored. The damaged Cobalt 60 and CT Simulator of Radiotherapy department has not been replaced yet with the result cancer patients are left without treatment.
Though Medical Superintendent SMHS Dr Nazir Choudhary told Excelsior that they have restored 95 percent of the hospital Wards, except Wards 1 and 7- that are being restored- and building which was damaged by the floods.
Dr Nazir said that some equipment for urgent needs was sent by the Government of India. But the essential equipment like CT Scans, ECGs, MRIs are yet to reach the hospital. He said one CT Scan has been installed, “two are in pipeline. No MRI has been brought yet. We sent there patients to SKIMS. ECHO machine has not been brought yet.”
The hospital has become a “liability” for the already over-burdened SKIMS as all the critical patients are sent there for treatment and other tests.
An insider in the hospital said the equipment in the vital Radiotherapy department was damaged in the floods and now the cancer patients are sent to SKIMS.
Similarly, the patients suffering from neurology diseases and who require electroencelography (EEG) services are also denied treatment as there is no equipment.
The non-availability of the essential equipment has left patients worried as they said that doing these tests costs them heavy amounts in the private labs.
“SKIMS is already over-burdened with patients coming from across the Valley. When we go there for tests we are told that we have to wait for months as a large number of patients are already lined for it. We have no option other than to go to private labs. But then it costs huge amount which becomes unbearable for us,” said a patient, who was asked to go for SKIMS to do an MRI.
The situation is equally worrying in the Gastroenterology Department since its eight endoscopes, colonoscopies and ercpcopes, hepatitis laboratory, ERCP, Endrospic ultra Sonography and double balloon endoscopy were damaged in the floods.
The Government had then allotted Rs 9 crore to the hospital to make important purchases, but the amount seems scant as its losses were estimated at Rs 200 crore.
An official in the hospital said that the Centre Government has disappointed the hospital authorities as they have not sent any amount to it. “We purchased machines and restored the building from the funds allotted by the State Government. No funds have come for the Centre,” he said, wanting not to be named.
Besides the failing healthcare system, the hospital’s heating system is not functioning properly leaving the patients to shiver.
The central heating system continues to remain erratic and it runs only for some hours and is switched off amid the cold. As per hospital guidelines, the heating should be kept running from 6 to 11 in the morning and 7 to 1 at night.
The official said that the hospital does not have enough funds to run the central heating round the clock.
The freezing weather has left both patients and doctors equally fuming. Doctors said that it is difficult to perform their duties in the freezing temperatures.
President Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) Dr Nisar ul Hassan, who is a senior doctor at the SMHS told Excelsior the “mother of all institutions” has been converted into a big dispensary. “It is a big dispensary. The top management of the hospital is responsible for reducing the premier hospital into a pathetic condition. The administrators are more into saving their positions than taking care of the hospital,” Dr Hassan said.
“Be it drugs, equipment or infrastructure, the hospital is lacking it all. The ‘mother of all medical institutes’ is now as good as a dispensary,” he said.
The hospital suffers from truancy and lack of proper medicare to critical patients on Sundays when senior doctors thrust medical interns and post graduate (PG) doctors to handle emergency cases in the casualty Department.
This has repeatedly drawn flak from the patients and society and most of the times the angry attendants thrash junior doctors in the unit.
The junior doctors themselves are annoyed by this “forcible” duty of running the unit.
“We are forced to handle emergency cases in the hospital because the Registrars and Consultants remain absent from the casualty most of the times. We can’t complaint over it as it will surely invite wrath from seniors,” he said.
Dr Hassan said there is no accountability as the management of the hospital is “lenient”. But, the medical superintendent said: “An intern or a PG has MBBS degree which makes him/her eligible to handle emergency cases too.”
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