SRINAGAR: Amid growing trauma due to civil unrest, Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) said on Tuesday that shortage of intensive care unit (ICU) beds in Kashmir hospitals was killing critically injured patients, Rising Kashmir newspaper reported.
DAK President Dr Nisar ul Hassan said in a statement that avoidable deaths were occurring due to lack of ICU beds for emergency and trauma patients. He said, “How fast intensive care is given to trauma patients determines whether they survive or not.”
He said, “We see patients dying and there is nothing we can do about it.” He said that lack of ICU beds was turning into nightmare with critically ill patients forced to shift to trolley beds or general wards. “Patients’ succumbing to easily preventable deaths is so sickening that one is left scratching the head for answers.”
He said that it beats logic that for a population of seven million there were only 32 ICU beds. The Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) Hospital which is an 850 bedded tertiary care hospital only has 12 ICU beds and the 760 bedded multispecialty, Sher-I-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) hospital has only 20.
