Srinagar, May 11: Monday night, Abdul Hamid of Kulgam watched six children being carried out on stretchers, from the emergency ward of G B Pant Hospital, dead. He saw mothers of “those fresh roses” wailing and beating their chests in “continuing darkness” of the hospital.
 “Six children were dead that night. It was a mournful night,” he says.
 Hamid is whispering in the ear of his 18-month-old daughter Samia. “You want to live Samia? You will my dear…,” he says. “Samia has pneumonia. And I don’t think she will live as they (doctors) do not bother at all,” he tells Greater Kashmir.
 In the Emergency Ward parents lay on floor; mothers have tears dried in their eyes and children lay restless on “death beds”. “It is no more going to help us and our kids. There is no treatment. I have been waiting for the doctor to diagnose my son but they don’t come. Our children are on death beds,” said a city resident Arshid Ahmad.
 G B Pant has the “distinction” of being the sole children hospital of the Valley.
 The “strangulating” smell of phenyl emanating from without-door bathroom dominates wards here where children are admitted for treatment. “It is a killing smell. We as adults cannot simply breathe it and we go out. But I wonder how children would be negotiating with it. And when doctors enter the ward – if they do – they cover their mouths with something very special,” said an attendant Abdul Karim.
 In a small corner of ward No. 4, a parent is himself steaming his 3-month old son who is suffering from chest infection. “We handle this machine by our own. We have been pumping the saline vapors in our son’s mouth like doctors feed oxygen to a patient. They had told us to do it ourselves. I fear what we are doing ourselves. They have not yet come to see him even after staying here for four days,” says a parent Nisar Ahmad.
 Outside building, in the backyard, dogs are pounding on a heap of garbage eating, pissing and barking.  “Outside they (dogs) are barking all the time and inside our sons and daughters suffer emotionally,” Nisar says.
 “We have been waiting for the doctor to come. Yesterday he saw my son he said he will see tomorrow. Now I am waiting here. They don’t say what is wrong with my son,” says a parent, attendant.
 Two days before Greater Kashmir received a complaint from a Bangalore based businessman, saying that from ward No. 4 during 24 hours in the G B Pant Hospital 20 children died. 
 “I was in G B Pant Children Hospital at Sonawar Srinagar on May 7. In ward No. 4 alone, thirteen children died within less than 24 hours. I want to know the reason why is this happening?
 Is there any one responsible from the ministry of health to take strict action against these culprits who are playing with the lives of these innocents? The next generation of Kashmiris is getting killed so cheaply, I had never imagined,” says Sahil Bhat, Managing Director MSZIN Technologies Inc. Bangalore, stated in his letter.  

Lastupdate on : Fri, 11 May 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 11 May 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sat, 12 May 2012 00:00:00 IST