Kashmir continues to be under a curfew, but fortunately there has been no addition to the death toll in last few days. The debate has marginally shifted to the injured, many of whom are still in hospitals. There are people who have lost eyesight as pellets or marbles hit their eyes and youth rendered paraplegic. There are some whose limbs had to be amputated and many would survive with disfigured faces.
Major load of the injured – hit by bullets, pellets and tear smoke shells – is managed primarily by the Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital (SMHS). “It is the main hospital where we decide which patients are supposed to be managed here and who is to be referred to the Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) or to the Bone & Joints Hospital,” a senior doctors at the SKIMS said. Patients go to SKIMS if they have neurological or cardio-thoracic complicacies and for orthopaedic injuries they are shifted to Bone and Joints hospital.
Hospitals sources said SMHS received 400 firearm injuries since May which included over 90 bullet injuries. Authorities at SKIMS, Kashmir’s only tertiary care centre, have reported receiving around 700 injured. Bone & Joint hospital has received 150 firearm injuries and the SKIMS run medical college hospital at Bemina has recorded 165 injured admissions since June.
A senior doctor who wishes not to be named said most of the bullet injuries are in head, chest or abdomen. Doctors in the trauma centre were relieved with the recovery of a rubber bullet from an injured. They are used to extracting fatal metal. “It should have been used abundantly but it is too rare,” a paramedic said while flashing it on his cell phone.
At least half a dozen people who were hit by the bullets were rendered paraplegic – they have lower side of their body paralyzed. While some are still in the hospital, at least in one case, a young housewife was sent home to remain bed ridden for the rest of her life.
Iron pellets being fired by the police and paramilitary forces using traditional hunting guns as ‘non lethal’ weapons have injured scores. Three have already died. But in 38 cases, they have hit the eyes of the protestors in the patient load of SMHS alone. Prof Bashir Ahmad is running his own eye hospital after he retired as head of GMC’s ophthalmology department. “We got 19 patients with pellet injuries and 15 of them lost one eye,” Bashir said.
“These included two teenage girls and a boy of seven years.” The doctor had a number of patients admitted to his hospital and were supposed to undergo surgeries but I could not reach the hospital because I was not permitted to move, he said.
The last case that was reported on this front was a ninth standard boy Abid Mushtaq. On September 29, he had gone to see if his school bus had arrived that he was caught, beaten and finally attacked by a slingshot. Doctors who operated upon him said chance of his injured eye reviving is bleak.
A number of people who have received bullets or tear-smoke shells in their faces have suffered fractures necessitating them to undergo maxillofacial surgeries. Reports appearing in vernacular newspapers suggest that in SMHS, 70 such surgeries have taken place since June 11. These included 20 females, of them 53 were mandible (jaw bone) fractures. Even after undergoing these surgeries, some of them will have to live with disfigured faces for rest of their lives.
However, the biggest story that the state government is shy of telling the world is that the crisis has helped it to revive its healthcare system in Kashmir countryside. “I do not have any numbers to tell you,” Health Minister Sham Lal Sharma told a news conference on Thursday while offering the detailed statistics of the cholera epidemic that was controlled in the middle of the crisis. “Our institutions are working and they are catering to patients who come to them.”
But his officers are angry. “The reality is that our hospitals in the countryside have catered to 1200 injured during last three months,” a senior officer who wishes to remain anonymous said. “Of these patients we conducted more than 200 surgeries and referred only 250 to major hospitals in Srinagar.”
For the last 20 years the system evolved because the situation was that the healthcare system in the countryside collapsed forcing the teaching hospitals of the Government Medical College in Srinagar to take the maximum load. In the situation that emerged since June 11, massive protests by the stone-pelting crowds and a strict curfew by the security grid limited people to the local level that forced revival of these District and Sub-District hospitals. So serious is the situation even today most of the patient transfers from districts to Srinagar’s major hospitals – other than emergencies – becomes possible around midnight.
“We own 400 ambulances and during this crisis five of them were set afire while 90 others were damaged,” another senior officer in the state health department said. This is in addition to the losses that the ambulances owned by the associated hospitals and the SKIMS might have suffered. Interestingly Kashmir owns only patient transfer vehicles and not ‘critical care ambulances’. There are only two such ambulances – one each attached to the cavalcades of governor and chief minister. After the report was carried last month by a newspaper, governor volunteered to dispense with the ambulance that follows his cavalcade uselessly. “By 2011 we will have the best ambulances attached to our hospitals,” minister Sharma said.
As the details of the plight of injured started creeping to the front pages, it has started irking the police. Expressing surprise over the reports, police spokesman claimed that only 504 persons were injured since June but 2660 cops were injured in stone pelting. “During this period 78 properties, including 44 offices, 29 police stations were set ablaze and damaged,” the spokesman said, adding “mobs set on fire and damaged 31 government vehicles including 22 police vehicles and 23 houses of the policemen.” Even the state legislature was informed by the chief minister that only 537 civilians were injured as compared to 1274 CRPF personnel and 2747 police men.
This has perplexed many because quite a few cops were treated at various hospitals and the police hospital in Srinagar’s Police Control Room lacks the capacity and infrastructure to take such a massive load.
