Srinagar, Aug 12: It’s unbelievable but true. Kashmir has no ambulances with critical care and life-support system for commoners. The only available ambulances are functional with Governor and the Chief Minister of the state.
The lack of such ambulances in the Valley is proving to be costly in terms of the number of lives lost during the past two months. Experts say that if immediate first aid and emergency treatment to the trauma patients would have been available in ambulances, many lives could have been saved.
“In fact we don’t have ambulances here, these are just carriers,” remarked a doctor.
A number of people whose lives doctors say could have been saved, were bought to hospitals—mainly SMHS and SKIMS here—in critical condition and later on succumbed.
Doctors at SMHS Hospital said that they received five such persons who had succumbed by the time they reached the hospital. They quote one instance where a young boy, Showkat Ahmad Wagay, 22, who was injured in the paramilitary CRPF firing at Amargarh Sopur in North Kashmir on July 30, succumbed at hospital. Wagay, doctors said, had a bullet injury in his leg. “He didn’t have a fatal injury. But he had lost too much blood and by the time he was admitted in the hospital, he was dead,” doctors at SMHS hospital said.
“It was really unfortunate. Had he been provided the emergency first aid, he would have survived,” they said.
A senior doctor at the hospital said the first hour after the trauma is crucial and if the emergency treatment is provided to the patient it will make a huge difference and matter in terms of life and death.
“Unfortunately, the ambulances in hospitals at Srinagar as well as in peripheries lack basic facilities like first aid, leave alone life-support equipment,” a doctor said.
He also attributed the increase in fatalities to “extra time consumption at the scene of incident and transportation.” Director Health Services, Kashmir, Dr Muhammad Amin, acknowledged that the hospitals in Valley lacked proper ambulances and said the department was soon acquiring critical care ambulances.
“Yes, we do not have ambulances which would have basic medical equipment and life-support system. But we already have a plan to have one in each district of the state. The process is underway,” he said.
“We need manpower for these ambulances and it would take us some more time,” he said.

Lastupdate on : Thu, 12 Aug 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Thu, 12 Aug 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Fri, 13 Aug 2010 00:00:00 IST