The recent assault on a doctor at Srinagar’s Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) Hospital is a glaring symptom of a much deeper, systemic rot in Kashmir’s public healthcare system. While the arrest of the assailant and the doctor’s strike may be seen as events resolved, the underlying chaos, mismanagement, and crumbling systems in our hospitals demand urgent attention.
Kashmir is home to some of the finest doctors — resilient, committed, and highly skilled professionals who have worked through conflict, underfunding, and frequent administrative indifference for decades. But they are not miracle workers. When they are forced to function in environments marked by poor infrastructure, broken management systems, and dehumanising hospital conditions, the best among them will break down.
A recent visit to the SMHS Hospital’s emergency ward offered a painful reality check: chaos, lack of structure, and a shocking absence of humane care. Public hospitals in Kashmir often resemble war zones, not because of their staff, but because of dysfunctional systems and archaic management models.
We must recognise that doctors are not administrators. Their training is in medicine, not hospital management. Expecting them to lead complex health institutions without professional administrative support is deeply flawed. We need trained hospital managers in every tertiary care facility. We need tiered emergency care with specialists available round the clock, and district and sub-district hospitals that are functional, well-staffed, and community-oriented.
It is an unpardonable failure that Kashmir does not have a dedicated cardiac emergency facility in 2025. How many more lives must be lost for policymakers to act?
This is a wake-up call for the Omar-led administration. We urge the government to immediately commission a comprehensive, independent review of J&K’s public health system, led by professionals in healthcare management. The time for patchwork solutions is over. Structural, long-term policy reforms are the only way forward.
If we wait longer, more patients will die needlessly, more doctors will leave or burn out, and public trust in healthcare will erode beyond repair.
