Srinagar, Jan 05: Patients at Jawahar Lal Nehru Memorial (JLNM) Hospital Rainawari suffer due to dysfunctional elevator which hasn’t been made functional for the past eight years.
Attendants expressed dismay over the non-functional elevator saying that critical patients, pregnant women and elderly persons are the worst suffers.
Ghulam Muhammad Mir of Sangam who accompanied her mother, suffering from heart diseases, at the hospital said they had to suffer due to dysfunctional elevator.
“Critical patients often need to move from one ward to another ward, they face trouble due to dysfunctional elevator. It should run round the clock and it is already installed there. Our mother was admitted for 13 days and we faced a number of difficulties,” he said.
In addition to this, the angry attendant complain of improper heating arrangements due to which patients as well as attendants shiver in cold as Kashmir is witnessing bone chilling cold nights.
“The heating system starts at 8 p.m. to 12 in the night and from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. In the rest of the time patients suffer a lot,” he said.
Mir further said the cardiology ICU ward has no washroom of its own and severely ill patients face a difficult time while attending nature’s call. “The other washrooms are located away from the ward and those are also in unhygienic condition,” he said.
Another attendant from Lal Bazar Srinagar, who attended his ailing father also suffering from heart disease, said the hospital ramp is also not in a proper condition.
“The tiles of the ramp are broken and damaged making it difficult for critical patients to move on wheelchairs. Serious patients have to face jerks. The ramp area is not covered and patients also suffer a lot due to cold,” he said.
The attendant said he took his father to the hospital’s cath lab on Thursday where there are no heating arrangements not even for hospital staff.
“We appreciate the role of doctors who provide best treatment to patients but the poor infrastructure mars everything and it also overshadows their proficiency,” he said
The centrally located hospital remains abuzz with hundreds of patients including pregnant women on daily basis from different parts of Srinagar.
“It is very difficult for elderly patients who rely on lifts to reach on upper floors in the hospital. Patients who undergo surgeries are taken to the surgical ward on ramp which is irksome and takes time,” he added.
An employee in the hospital said the facility was repaired in 2014 for two months only but after that it stopped functioning again.
The elevator was installed by Jammu And Kashmir Projects Construction Corporation Limited (JKPCC) and it has not been handed over to the hospital administration.
The hospital’s Incharge Medical Superintendent, Dr Ab Rouf Bhat told Rising Kashmir that they have taken up the matter with the higher authorities. On Thursday, the hospital held a meeting regarding the dysfunctional elevator that also discussed other issues as well.
“There is a problem with the lift and it is not in service since 2014. The IPD building which has elevator has been declared unsafe. We have discussed the matter many times. Lets see what decision the department takes,” he said. Bhat also reacted to the other complaints of the attendants and called these baseless.
