Critical healthcare also ailing in Kashmir |
At the Super Speciality Hospital Shireen Bagh, an institution designed to represent the highest tier of public healthcare in the Valley, the everyday realities inside its Intensive Care Unit (ICU) raise unsettling questions about what “care” has come to mean in practice. In a setting where continuous monitoring, technical competence, and clinical precision are indispensable, one expects the strictest adherence to professional standards. Yet, what unfolds instead is a quiet but consequential displacement of responsibility.
During a recent visit, I witnessed an inversion of roles that should be institutionally inconceivable. In the apparent absence of adequate nursing staff, family attendants were compelled to undertake basic yet critical caregiving functions: changing diapers, managing urine bags, and attending to hygiene needs. These are not peripheral tasks. They are embedded within a structured chain of clinical care, governed by protocols of sanitation, risk management, and patient safety. Their informal transfer to untrained individuals signals not merely a shortage of personnel, but a systemic dilution of responsibility.
To understand the gravity of this situation, it is necessary to move beyond anecdote and situate it within broader workforce realities. The Indian Nursing Council prescribes a nurse-to-patient ratio of 1:1 in ICUs for critically ill patients, and at most 1:2 in less acute conditions. These are not aspirational ideals but minimum safety thresholds. However, national........