Amid growing trauma due to civil unrest, Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) Tuesday said that shortage of intensive care unit (ICU) beds in Kashmir hospitals is killing critically injured patients.
President DAK Dr Nisar ul Hassan in a statement said that avoidable deaths are occurring due to lack of ICU beds for emergency and trauma patients.
“How fast intensive care is given to trauma patients determines whether they survive or not,” Dr Nisar said adding “we see patients dying and there is nothing we can do about it”.
He said that lack of ICU beds is turning into nightmare with critically ill patients forced to shift to trolley beds or general wards. “Patients’ succumbing to easily preventable deaths is so sickening that one is left scratching the head for answers,” he said.
Dr Nisar said that it beats logic that for a population of seven million there are only 32 ICU beds.
SMHS which is an 850 bedded tertiary care hospital has 12 ICU beds and 760 bedded multi-specialty SKIMS hospital has 20.