Malik Jehangir
SRINAGAR: The cancer patients of Kashmir valley and many areas of Jammu division are all set to face problems since the state government has decided to convert the Kashmir Nursing Home, Sonwar into a full-fledged ophthalmology hospital.
Governor Satya Pal Malik led state administration recently took the decision of converting the Kashmir Nursing Home into ophthalmology hospital thus depriving the cancer patients of the facility of the chemotherapy being provided at the hospital.
Sources said that the conversion of Nursing Home into ophthalmology hospital would lead to a situation where the cancer patients would have limited facilities for receiving chemotherapy. This would put the extra burden on the institutions providing different facilities for the cancer patients.
Sources said that the Medical Oncology department established at Super Specialty Hospital, Srinagar has failed to meet the demands of the cancer patients. The people manning the hospital have taken very few corrective measures to improve the functioning of the health facility.
“At the Super Specialty Hospital 20-25 beds have been earmarked for the medical oncology department. Since the hospital is not functioning fully in this branch of medicine it is quite but natural that the cancer patients of the valley and some parts of Jammu would suffer on multiple fronts,” said sources.
Sources said that the Super Specialty Hospital has yet to come out of the administrative control of Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) hospital and it is due to this reason that the specialty hospital has not been able to come to the terms of the people who had pinned hopes on the same.
“Medical Oncology is one of the key departments in the medical world and the same needs to be developed at the fullest possible at all health institutions. The irony is that no such step has been taken to develop the department at the Super Specialty Hospital, Srinagar and other dedicated health institutions of the state,” said sources.
It would be in place to mention here that the administrative control of Kashmir Nursing Home has been shuttled between Directorate of Health Services Kashmir and Government Medical College, Srinagar. At present the nursing home is under the administrative control of GMC Srinagar and the college authorities have decided to convert it into a full-fledged eye hospital.
“The higher authorities in the Health and Medical Education department had been contemplating to convert the nursing home into eye hospital and the same has been done just a week back. The authorities should also devote attention towards the problems of cancer patients and solve the problems once for all,” said sources.