SRINAGAR: As the situation in Kashmir’s lone maternity care hospital – Lala Ded – is limping towards normalcy, the staffers at the medical centre recount the horrors they confronted when flood waters entered into the premises.
It was on the evening of Saturday, September 6, that water from River Jhelum overflowed the bund near the Blood Bank and entered into the hospital complex at Wazir Bagh here.
“We were in constant touch with the officials of the Flood Control Department and they told us waters would not rise that much so as to enter the hospital complex. But then in the evening on Saturday, the waters rose fast and seeped into the complex,” medical superintendent of Lala Ded Mushtaq Ahmad Rather told PTI.
He said the hospital staff, along with locals, tried to plug the gaps and raise the level of the bund using sand bags for about an hour but the water overflowed the bund at most of the places.
“We used sand bags to stop water and managed to do it to some extent. I was here till about 8 pm on Saturday and then I left. And when I was taking dinner at my residential quarters in Bemina, my staff called and told me that water was overflowing the bund and entering into the hospital. I immediately returned,” Rather said.
The doctor said the hospital staff, helped by locals, shifted the patients from the ground floor of the old building to the new building as a first measure.
“I, along with the deputy medical superintendent, Farhat Shafi and my HODs and locals shifted the patients from the ground floor and labor room to the second floor of the recently completed new block. There were 130 to 150 patients that time,” he said.
Shafi said, “We did not know the situation outside and were expecting help to reach us on priority but our hopes were dashed, only to get regenerated when two local boys came and asked if we need anything.
“It was like the angels had visited us. We told the two young volunteers to get candles on priority and if possible get some biscuits and water as well,” she said, adding the boys did not disappoint them.
With the situation getting worse as communication channels also broke down, the scene at the hospital was grim but “our hope and faith” was not shattered.
“I had last contacted my family during the day and asked them to shift to upper floors but by the evening I was unaware of their fate and same was the case with my colleagues,” Rather said, adding “they decided to form four teams next morning to survive the floods”.
Despite such a nightmare, he said they performed their duties including six deliveries under candlelight, and did not let the patients or their attendants suffer. “One team comprising youth and Deputy Medical Superintendent Farhat Shafi were sent to the rooftop to attract attention of the IAF choppers flying overhead, the second team was entrusted the job of building a makeshift boat using bamboo sticks that lay in the hospital for construction purposes.
“Another team was tasked with monitoring and distribution of food, while the fourth team was monitoring the recovery of patients and their needs,” Rather said.
The MS said he himself along with some attendants managed to reach other side of the bund using the foot bridge over Jhelum near Lal Mandi by wading through the waters to seek help for evacuation of the holed up people at the hospital.
“I could not reach any government functionary but I managed to get food from a businessman-turned-politician who had opened his complex for the affected people and was running a community kitchen at Abi Guzar near Lal Chowk,” Rather said.
He said by the evening on Monday, local volunteers started pouring in and managed to evacuate 30 to 40 patients to safer places. “It was their effort which paved the way for complete evacuation of all the 130 to 150 holed up patients, their attendants and hospital staff by Tuesday,” he said.
Rather said the hospital had discharged many patients on Saturday after completion of their necessary treatment but they were reluctant to leave as many parts of Kashmir were hit by the floods. “We allowed these patients and their attendants to stay back on humanitarian grounds.”
“All of my staff was working on war footing for the last 10 days and we are hopeful to restart the hospital soon,” he said. Police are assisting the hospital staff to clear the ground floor where the expensive diagnostic machinery and blood bank was located along with drug store.
Srinagar Municipal Corporation has deployed a few trucks to clear the heaps of garbage left in the hospital including discarded medicines, disposables and beddings and was also planning to fumigate the hospital premises. -PTI
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