Srinagar hospitals lack even the basic information booth and a public address system
Valley hospitals lack enquiry cells
Baba Umar (Rising Kashmir)
Srinagar: With no enquiry cells in the Valley’s leading healthcare institutes, patients who come all the way from distant places claim they go astray in the vast hospital buildings.
“I am trying to locate the cardiology section for the past two hours but I failed,” said Muhammad Amin who had come all the way from Kupwara to see doctors at SKIMS, Soura. Amin said he had been asking people around and in the corridor about the chamber he had to visit but everybody seemed busy and evaded his enquiry.
“I have decided to return, perhaps I will come after a week,” Amin said.
Not only SKIMS, other prime city hospitals which include, GB Pant Children Hospital, SMHS Hospital, LD Hospital, SKIMS Bemina, also do not have public address cells, causing patients to face several problems in locating the doctors and the departments.
In the SKIMS Medical College and Hospital (popularly known as JVC), visitors are often seen asking attendants in the premises about the location of several sections of the hospital.
Another visitor, Hajira Begum of Kulgam who had come to see a patient in the city’s SMHS hospital, returned home after three hours of endless search. “No one assisted me to locate my patient. I enquired from employees and other attendants but to no avail,” she said.
Meanwhile, SMHS hospital authorities acknowledged problems faced by patients as well as the visitors and assured that the enquiry cell in the hospital will be set up soon.
“We will soon set up a public address system. The administration has discussed the problem in the past and setting up of an enquiry cell is in the pipeline,” Dr Mushtaq Shah, Principal SMHS told Rising Kashmir. He said some senior members of the administration are out of the State and after their return he would raise the issue with them.
An official of the SKIMS, Soura said that the hospital is upgrading its various departments while the enquiry cell and public relation office will be all set up soon. “In the past we received such grievances about patients or visitors going awry in and outside the hospital. However we will soon set up an enquiry cell in the premises,” he said.