Amid continuous shutdown from last over a month in the Valley, the patient rush in Kashmir’s prominent super specialty hospitals has decreased by almost 40 percent, officials told wire service Kashmir News Observer.Officials while talking to the wire service KNO said that there has been a steep decline in the number of patients being witnessed in the hospitals including SMHS, SKIMS, Lal Ded and others.They said the number of patients being tackled by the doctors every day before shutdown was high but since the shutdown is in place, the rush has decreased by almost 40 per cent with people preferring to visit local Public Health Centers (PHC) and District Hospitals.According to the officials, the number of patients in PHCs and District hospitals has increased as the people are finding it difficult in the ongoing shutdown to reach the prominent hospitals, situated in Srinagar.Kashmir Valley has been observing spontaneous shutdown since August 05, 2019 to protest against the Government of India’s decision to abrogate Article 370 and division of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories.
Officials said that all the stock of medicines and other things are available in almost all the hospitals and the patients visiting the hospitals are being treated without any hindrance.An employee of health department working, posted at PHC in Srinagar outskirts told KNO that the rush of patients has increased and the dearth of employees in PHC’s has been giving tough time to them in tackling the rush of patients.“We have earlier informed the department to increase the number of employees at PHC to ensure people don’t suffer but nothing favourable was done so far, therefore lack of absolute manpower has left employees as well as the patients at PHCs to suffer,” he told wire service KNO.The district hospitals as per the KNO correspondent have been functioning normally with officials claiming that there was no dearth of employees, doctors or medicines. “We have been monitoring the situation of hospitals keenly and we are trying to ensure that no one will suffer in any manner,” they told KNO. (KNO)