Flooded hospitals rendered inoperative; lives of patients in city at risk
Often touted as Paradise on Earth for its breathtaking beauty, the summer Capital of Jammu & Kashmir, Srinagar is in dire need of intensive care.
The devastating floods have not only converted the entire city into a giant lake, snapped telecommunication lines and road links, but they have completely devastated the critical health care infrastructure risking lives of thousands of patients admitted across hospitals in the city.
According to ground reports the iconic Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital, lal Ded Hospital, GB Pant Hospital (Children hospital) and even Soura Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) are some of the worst- affected hospitals and have been rendered inoperative.
Vital equipment and diagnostic tools including CT scan and ultrasound machines, incubators and medical stores have been damaged by the flood water and even operation theatres inside some of these buildings are flooded, making them unfit for use.
On Saturday night, when the floodwaters rose to dangerous levels and there was a power outage in GB Pant Hospital the incubators also got switched off. Unconfirmed reports claimed that more than ten newborn babies could not survive. However over 150 patients, doctors and hospital staff were safely shifted by the Army rescue teams on Wednesday from the hospital.
Some of the other hospitals have also been submerged and lying defunct in Srinagar. Private nursing homes and clinics across residential colonies are also badly-affected by the floods.
The lives of critically ill patients who cannot survive without intensive care, dialysis, CCU units or proper healthcare are in danger in the absence of any timely help reaching them.
On Thursday, some of the patients were escorted in an air ambulance to New Delhi to ease the load of the Army hospital.
Relatives of the patients are facing many hardships in reaching their loves ones who were shifted out due to water logging in the vicinity and inside the hospital complex.
A few private hospitals and small health centres which are still operational in Srinagar and on the periphery are on the verge of exhausting essential supplies due to the large rush of patients.
“We are running short of medicines, sterilized tools, bed sheets, injectable antibiotics, life saving drugs, fluids and the most important ingredient, fuel, to run the hospital” doctors of Ahmad Hospital in Srinagar said.
The Army is running medical camps across relief centres and providing medical assistance. According to MOD spokesman Col SD Goswami: “96 medical teams have been deployed in J&K to provide assistance to the people. The Indian Army is also in the process of setting up their field hospital unit to provide better healthcare facilities.”
In the absence of a State Government machinery the situation on the ground is precarious and turning grim with every passing hour. The ambulances are grounded in hospital premises and the health department staff nowhere to be seen after the main city hospitals were shut down in the absence of alternate power back-up.
The hospitals that are rendering emergency services urgently need water supplies to maintain cleanliness, restoration of power supplies or alternate back-up in the form of generator sets and adequate fuel to run the emergency services.
The doctors in Kashmir are worried and fear break out of epidemics as carcasses of animals are floating in the neck deep waters across Srinagar. “We cannot rule out the presence of human bodies under the flood waters and need emergency measures to prevent any epidemic,” a health expert in Jammu said.
General patients who can manage without hospital stay are desperately trying to seek medical advice at makeshift health camps managed by local doctors at various places in Srinagar. Various religious places and community centres are also running temporary health camps to treat routine patients.
The doctors and healthcare workers have pooled in meager resources at their command to give some relief to the patients but the scale of devastation is humongous and in the coming days the State Government would have to face challenging times dealing with the wide variety of patients.