Waiting tirelessly for their turn: children, adults, old aged, men, women and the third sex, the human lines seem exhaustingly unending. Every face has a story to tell: of pain, suffering and of faith and hope, equally exhausting and unending. And at the end of each human chain, among the shrieks, cries and shouts are the deliverers of that hope, The lifeguards.
Welcome to the busiest department of one of the busiest hospitals of India, our own Hedwun also referred to as: the shifa khana, Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital, Welcome to the department of General Medicine.
The department is headed by the renowned Neurologist of the state, Dr. Parvez Shah, a man of knowledge, authority and an extreme sense of humour, the amalgam of which keeps the overburdened subsection working tirelessly for the service of fellow Kashmiris, through every trough and tension. Dr. Shah executes a very balanced influence of fear and affection and knows how to keep the machinery running.
The department stands decorated with world renowned names in the field of medical science, super-specialists like Dr. Tajamul Mir (Nephrologist), Dr. Hayat (Endocrinologist), Dr. Khalid Mohi-ud-din (Cardiologist), Dr. Omar Faruq (Neurologist) and exceptional Internists like the veteran Prof. Masood Tanvir, Dr. Irfan Ali, Dr. Muzaffar Maqbool and Dr. Ismael. The cost of seeing such doctors, in any western country, would very conveniently amount to thousands of dollars, but they chose to stay back during the most turbulent years of Kashmiri politics, when most of the others were deserting the place, and have been serving the society for tens of years now.
The department runs the indoor, the outpatient and the casualty sections. SMHS hospital is the third only tertiary level hospital of Jammu and Kashmir and hence caters to millions of people, with a very limited staff. It is mostly the poorer and under-privileged sections of the society that benefit from the services of this centre. On a daily basis the medical outdoor caters to a patient load of thousands, there are hundreds of emergencies that are dealt with, numerous referrals that are made to higher centers, and scores of patients admitted, evaluated and treated. The same magnitudes hold true for other specialties like Surgery and gynecology as well. The regional diaspora of patients is diverse, there are patient from Srinagar city and from other areas like Islamabad, Kupwara, Shopian, Pulwama, Ganderbal etc. Some patients prefer to travel from far off places like Udhampur, Rajouri and Uri for their belief in SMHS. The hospital is mostly preferred to the other major centre i.e Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of medical sciences(SKIMS), because of its easy accessibility and a long held faith in the ‘State hospital’
There is a martial hierarchy of working and delivery. The top strata, the brain behind patient care are the Professors and the lecturers which is followed by a team of immaculately trained registrars and Post graduates, constituting the main workforce of the department. All of them have dedicated their personal and social lives to the cause of humanity. It is not an uncommon sight to see the senior-most faculty, some of which are in their sixties, attending to the patients even during the late hours of weekends, a sight that is extremely rare in other government departments. The lecturers and consultants in each sub-specialty are on call all through the 24 hours and can be sought at a single phone ring.
The medical casualty of SMHS never sleeps. There is a rush of patients throughout the day and night. The doctors have to be up, physically and mentally, an art which they seemed to have mastered.
The senior and junior residents can be seen working in the casualty and the indoors even at hours as late as 3 a.m. The average duration of work-hours for resident doctors sometimes reaches to as high as 90 hours per week. It is not very unusual for the doctors to miss their meals and sleep for the sake of patient well being. During the casualty shifts, the number of patients seen by a single resident over a period of 24 hours may reach to as high as 200-300 and the night shifts are mostly prolonged to 36 hours.
Apart from regular basis, the hospital and the department have been praised, time and again for keeping up during the times of turmoil in 2008, 2010, the floods, and the recent uprisings after the killing of Burhan Wani. There were stories in leading newspapers about how most of the medicos would risk their own lives through stone pelting, bullets and pellets to reach the hospitals and help the sick and injured.
The doctors in Kashmir are the least paid in whole of the India. The consultants and registrars are eligible for lucrative jobs in all the major cities, and the monthly packages as high as 4-5 lakhs for consultants and 2-3 lakhs for registrars are often offered in some centers, but those serving in SMHS have decided to stay back, not being lured into the commercial alcoves of the profession and deliver their skills as well as their personal lives to the hospital while working in the politically most unstable region of the world.
The department has upgraded itself on timely basis. Most of the latest procedures and treatment protocols are followed and updated on regular basis. The department offers the patients with facilities like Angioplasties, Pacemaker implantations, Dialysis, Kidney biopsies, Endoscopies, ERCPs (now shifted to super-specialty hospital), Intensive care and all major treatments that aren’t sometimes available even in the best western health centers. The department of medicine along with the surgery, radiology and gynaecology departments provides a multi-dimensional and multi-perspective approach to the patients’ problems. As such, there has been a substantial drop in the number of deaths of the admitted, over the last 20 years. The number of those visiting the foreign countries for the above procedures has substantially reduced as well. Last few years have also seen a rise in medical tourism, owing to the cheap cost of the treatment.
Apart from the professional emancipation, the department of medicine has been encouraging research and development. Numerous researches and articles are published in various reputed journals by the doctors working in the department. The post-graduate course has numerous scholars submitting their research works each year. There are interactive sessions and seminars held, to discuss the evolving approaches and outcomes in the field of medicine.
Violence against doctors has been rising all over the world and SMHS is no exception to it. The casualty of medicine often sees young doctors being abused and manhandled. The issues of security and passing of ‘doctor protection acts’ have often been raised up with those in chair, but they are seldom taken seriously. It is for the general masses to realize that doctors form the backbone to every community and if they are maltreated, there would be no one to look after our sick. Apart from this, the government too has been non-chalant towards the genuine demands of doctors, about issues like pay revision and allowances that are enjoyed by other non-health departments. The efforts put in by the medical sector towards the envisaging of society are colossal and very conveniently more than any other sector and as such the demands and grievances of the doctors should cede primacy to everything else.
(Writer is a Human rights activist)
