From one flood prone area to another

Shifting of all paediatric services from the G B Pant Hospital at Sonawar to new 500 bedded Children’s Hospital at Bemina is in progress. The process started a few days back and is expected to be completed in a week. In respect of the space, infrastructure and equipment, the new hospital will be surely better.

The man power too is expected to be increased to provide better health-care in future. The OPD services at Bemina Hospital were started in October last year.

   

The hospital is going to have a number of super and sub-specialities such as paediatric nephrology, cardiology, haematology and gastroenterology.

One thing in the GB Panth and new Children’s Hospital at Bemina is common – both are located in flood prone areas; if we keep the 2014 floods in mind. G B Panth Hospital was badly hit during the floods and the healthcare facilities were smashed to the extent that a number of mortalities happened later.

It is not only the GB Pant Hospital, which was hit by the floods, all other major hospitals in Srinagar were badly affected. Be it SMHS Hospital, Bone and Joint Hospital, and Lal Ded Hospital; almost all presented a sad story with patients, attendants, and medical staff having horrible experiences.

However, the SKIMS Soura was a ray of hope but flooded roads and shortage of drugs there was making things difficult. The Sanatnagar Hospital, which was free from flood, did play some role as far as dealing with maternity cases were concerned.

It took a long time to the flood affected hospitals to restore all the services, and function fully. Once the hospitals became fully operationalised, the focus was on further improving the facilities. Never before were these hospitals hit by floods.

And it is now being thought here that such a situation will not arise again for a long time now. But is that a wise thinking? Can we prevent natural calamities and determining their timings? Surely, we cannot.

But planning has to be done in advance to manage and reduce the impact to the possible extent. All the premier hospitals cannot be shifted right now to areas which were flood free in 2014.

But if the new hospital buildings have to be planned and constructed, those need to be constructed in non-flood prone areas. If the new hospitals keep on coming up in flood prone areas, it can be a serious problem for future.

If possible, plans should be made to set up hospitals in flood free areas so that the healthcare is not affected and patients, attendants and medical staff do not have to undergo the nightmarish experience again.

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