Saturday onwards, Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) hospital, one of the biggest in Srinagar, clocked 191 patients injured in the protests.
Protests have convulsed different corners of south Kashmir but the area lacks any trauma centres to deal with the violent fall outs. As the multitude of injuries increase, patients face a long, hazardous, journey to the hospitals in Srinagar. Different doctors have varying estimates of the number of injured, from 400 to 800. All agree there is no way to know for sure; patients are too far away from Srinagar to make it to hospitals in time, or are too scared to come after reports emerged of security forces threatening medical staff.
Saturday onwards, Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) hospital, one of the biggest in Srinagar, clocked 191 patients injured in the protests. As people took to the streets in massive numbers, after 22-year-old Burhan Wani, Hizbul Mujahideen commander, was killed by security forces on Friday, they got caught in the cross hairs of bullets, pellets, stones.
"If a trauma centre is more than five miles away from an injured patient," said Dr. Nasir Ul Hassan Malik, president of the Doctors Association of Kashmir (DAK), "the patient dies. We're getting patients from 60-70 kilometres away, sometimes 100 kilometres." South Kashmir desperately needs trauma specialists, anaesthetists to perform operations. The situation is, in his words, "grim". "This is a medical emergency, it's not possible to operate on the number of patients with severe injuries. The bodies are flooded with pellets," said Malik.
Unconfirmed reports out the number of dead at 30. The police have confirmed 23.
Of the 191 patients in the 500-bed SMHS, 50-60 were admitted on Monday after 2 pm when there was firing in areas such as Bijbehara, said Dr. Ashraf of the hospital. Fifty-one have eye injuries. Other most common injuries are in the abdomen, the chest and the head. Majority of these, say doctors, show that people were fired above the waistline.
"On Saturday we saw minor pellet injuries. But after 1pm there was an increase in the number of bullet injuries," recounted Dr. Ashraf. "On the second morning we got a young boy with pellet injuries to his head. He is critical and on the ventilator. Another had bullet injuries in both his thighs. He passed as his femoral arteries were badly injured." Ambulances come to hospital to deposit their injured "every five minutes". On Saturday, SMHS conducted 28 eye operations.
Social media is full of pleas of donations of blood and essential medicines; paracetamol, painkiller zerodol, antibiotic ciplox and a number of eyedrops that hospitals have run out of.
"Patients came from protests without any money, hospitals treated them free of cost and so we have run out of drugs," said Ashraf. "We ran out of food. Local NGOs are helping take care of patients. No shops are open in the curfew for us to stock up again."
Delays for trauma patients often mean complications due to blood loss, renal failure, amputation and often deaths. One of the reasons for the delay is also harassment of medical staff and ambulances by security forces.
Videos have emerged online of forces stopping an ambulance and beating the staff. SMHS was tear-gassed on Monday itself, where four patients suffering from chronic respiratory disease suffocated. Malik calls these "war crimes". In a statement, DAK denounced beatings suffered by hospital staff and ambulance drivers, calling it a "wanton disregard to international humanitarian law".
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