To work at Kashmir’s largest specialty hospital, Sher-I-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), Soura, is every medical student’s dream. Whether as a doctor, nurse, or Class IV cleaner, everyone wants to serve humankind here. It is one of the leading government specialty hospitals in the valley, with top doctors at service. This medical and research institution of the state has 5000+ employees working for it, and it incorporates more than 50 departments, including medicine, surgery, and others. But why does it seem to be the end of the patient when they are admitted there?
I will narrate my first-hand experience when I stepped inside SKIMS as a patient’s attendant, searching for Ward-2A, specifically for neurosurgery, where my maternal aunt was admitted. Every bed was occupied with patients having neurological problems; 50% of them could not recognise their family members, who hadn’t slept for days or weeks; they had left their homes, children, old ones, and all other tasks. The only hope for the bedridden patients was seeing the doctors in white coats running from bed to bed with a stethoscope around their neck.
On a pillar of this busy ward was a beautiful orange-coloured clock, unnoticed, watched by no one. I couldn’t stop hearing the tick-tock it made, though. Every bed in the ward has a unique number. The nurses call and shout, “Does bed 2 have emergency meds? Is bed number 12 stable? Where is the glucose on bed number 19?” Doctors roam from one corner to the other. Whoever sits there is mentally engaged with something, thinking about when they will come out of this distress, when their patient will be discharged and when they will feel the warmth of their home again.
Patients occupied almost all the 50 beds of Ward 2A, their attendants resting on the floor, some of the patients screaming. At that moment I realised that an attendant is the strength, the backbone for the patient. Even patients who had lost their backbone (spinal cord) because of an accident had support: of the attendant. The attendant was none other than their father, son, husband, mother, or wife. Patients from age 10 to age 80 were all there, either waiting for their last breath or a chance for a longer life.
I saw my maternal aunt, with the oxygen supply on 13 bar pressure, with her eyes closed and hands and feet cold as ice. She wasn’t moving at all, and I felt that her soul was waiting for a moment to leave. I just kept my hand on her face, but it was cold, too. I looked at her brother, who had been with her for the past two days. I could feel how exhausted and tired he must have been. It reminded me of an incident from 2 years back when I was alone with my mother for a whole week at JVC hospital, with my maternal uncle always beside her.
Coming back to the question I had mentioned in the first paragraph: “Why does SKIMS, Soura, seem to be the end of the patient when he or she is admitted there?” Firstly, it depends on the family of the patient. You may ask how? If you are a doctor and, God forbid, a close acquaintance of yours is admitted at SKIMS Soura, you know the patient’s problem: if he or she can survive. You won’t panic and think that it’s the end of the patient. On the other hand, if someone does not know what problem the patient is going through, reading through the medicines and listening to the doctors’ statements, a person primarily focuses on the negativity of the situation and hence thinks that it’s the END.
Secondly, there are many cases where patients with minimal problems have died due to the negligence of the hospital authorities. Hence, each hospital here is surrounded by the same feelings that only God can save the person. People don’t trust the doctors.
The last reason which is somewhat related to the first one is that if someone in the patient’s family is a doctor, they feel that the assigned doctor hasn’t given the right prescription, and hence they suggest their methods of treatment, which leads the family of the patient to a dilemma, and thus they again doubt the doctors.
Please don’t take me wrong; it’s not that you don’t have enough facilities or the staff there in SKIMS, Soura, is careless. No! You are fighting a deadly illness. All the valley hospitals have rejected you. The only hope you have is the specialty hospital, SKIMS Soura, with leading doctors from the valley treating you there, with almost every type of facility available. It’s you who are on the edge of the grave, but you are still trying to fight, give it a try in SKIMS Soura. The faculty there try their best to save every life admitted there. However, the point is that patients there are almost left with no time with deadly diseases like cancer, dementia, advanced lung, heart, kidney, and liver disease, stroke and other neurological diseases, including motor neuron disease and multiple sclerosis, Huntington’s disease, muscular dystrophy, HIV/AIDS, and other degenerative or deteriorating conditions relating to aging. Some illnesses are curable, but some have no known treatment. The individual might not get a proper cure, but medical treatments can help control it.
So, the next time, God forbid, you hear that someone is admitted to SKIMS, Soura, don’t sigh, but call the family of that patient and offer them your support. A few kind words of yours have the ability to turn someone’s life around. The medicine prescribed to the patient may cure the disease by 40%-50%but your support and kindness in times of distress have much more cure than any doctor can prescribe.

—The writer is a Civil Engineering student at SSM College of Engineering. [email protected]

Mohmod Irfan Shah