This report is a day late. As it has been these past six days with the security lockdown in place across the Valley, and all communication lines downed. Restrictions on movements during the day are stringent and it’s only when darkness descends that people in desperate need of medical assistance try to venture out. The cover of darkness becomes their passage to the city outside the four walls of their homes.
Shops remain shuttered, and the streets are almost empty barring the security personnel enforcing the prohibitory orders. Behind closed doors, people wait patiently. It’s an anxious wait — of patients desperate to reach the nearest health facility, of patients discharged from hospitals but unable to reach their homes, of parents waiting for word from sons and daughters studying outside the Valley, of worried migrant labourers waiting for relaxation of prohibitory orders so they can head home to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
The Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) Hospital, usually packed with patients and attendants every night, now receives a trickle. Its corridors and wards are more or less empty and ambulances are stationed outside, in a row. A doctor at the hospital told
The Indian Express: “There were days when there would be no beds available for patients and we would accommodate two patients on a single bed. But as you can see today, the beds are empty.”
“We receive very few patients in the emergency section as well. We are worried about patients who need critical care. Every day, we used to receive over two dozen cases of heart attack. Only a few are coming these days, mostly from Srinagar. What of the others? We don’t know.”