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| Is JK’s premier institute turning into Neem Hakeem adda? | | Emergency ward packed to capacity, acute shortage of medicines leaves patients in lurch | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Dec 6: JK’s premier health institute, SKIMS, Srinagar is becoming a hub of mismanagement, apathy and chaos, leaving patients in hordes in distress and endangering their lives en-masse. This series of news reports is going to expose the rot within the health institution – established otherwise to provide best healthcare facilities to the people hailing from economically downtrodden backgrounds.
Emergency services:
Amid the COVID-19 threat looming large with new variants of the virus compelling the health experts to advice for extreme caution, the emergency services in the hospital are throwing the COVID-19 norms to the wind. The doctors operating in the emergency ward keep complaining about the shortage of the face masks and aprons. They allege that due to the shortage of the supplies, the hospital administration is endangering their lives, compelling them to attend the patients when the paucity of masks is evident on the ground.
On the other hand, the emergency ward is so over-crowded that patients even in a critical condition are huddled in packed spaces on stretchers that too are in dilapidated conditions. The wheel chairs too are out of order.
Eye witnesses told Early Times that when a critically ill patient is taken to the emergency ward of the institute, the attendants accompanying the sick are told to even get a disposable syringe from the market. “My uncle had a stroke last month. I straight away took him to SKIMS. There we were taken to the emergency ward wherein the rush was so huge that we couldn’t get a stretcher or a wheelchair to put the patient onto. We finally managed a tattered stretcher the legs of which were broken. After around 15 minutes, the doctor attended to him and prescribed the medicines. We rushed to the drug counter and it was ironic to find that none of the drugs were available there. Even the urine caster and urobag were unavailable. I had to leave my uncle in that condition and rush to the main market to get the medicines and the requite disposable items. These entities ought to be available at the emergency drug counter. Only God knows why SKIMS is exposing people to such hardships,” said the attendant.
When contacted the senior official of the SKIMS administration admitted that patients in the emergency ward aren’t provided with the care they require in the first place. However, he cited administrative hurdles responsible for such a mess. “You see this has been happening in the institute for a long time. You cannot help it. There were no reformatory measures taken to address the issue and ensure quality healthcare is provided,” says the officer.
Meanwhile, according to attendants from various areas, the situation in the emergency ward has become so troublesome that much causality has taken place because of the dearth of the facilities. “There are many patients who are brought here by strangers. They are accidental cases and therefore, they have none to seek help from. To wander the markets in search of medicines. This is really pathetic,” says an attendant accompanying his father in the emergency ward of SKIMS. |
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