‘Amid escalating road trauma cases, strengthen emergency services at GMC Srinagar’

Srinagar, Nov 30: In J&K, road accidents claimed over 700 lives and injured thousands in 2024 alone. Yet, while the Government plans more Trauma Centers, absence of a dedicated Accident and Emergency (A&E) department at Government Medical College (GMC) Srinagar, primary tertiary care facility in Kashmir, is severely affecting emergency care.

Road fatalities in J&K are double the national average. The absence of a streamlined, protocol-driven emergency setup, doctors believe, is exacerbating delays in life-saving care, sometimes, "potentially turning treatable injuries into fatalities".

SMHS Hospital, serves as the apex referral center for trauma cases across the Valley. However, the load of all types of injuries, traumas and diseases is making it buckle under this pressure. Sans a centralised A&E unit, emergency patients, ranging from road accident victims to those with strokes, cardiac arrests, and acute medical issues, are managed in a fragmented manner across departments.

This leads to critical delays in triage, resuscitation, and intervention, doctors said.

A senior doctor at SMHS Hospital said a standalone A&E department at SMHS which is equipped with 24/7 triage and triage staff, resuscitation bays, on-site x-ray, USG and other imaging, blood banks, and multidisciplinary and multilevel teams was the need of the hour. "It could drastically improve outcomes during the golden hour," he said. Golden hour is the hour following trauma when prompt intervention bolsters survival chances. This setup, he said, has been recommended nationally for enhancing emergency and injury care at tertiary hospitals. These, he said, could prevent disabilities and save more lives.

The voices demanding this critical facility are growing within the GMC. A formal letter from the Medical Faculty Association (MFA) of GMC Srinagar explicitly requested the establishment of a dedicated A&E department at SMHS Hospital. The letter addressed to Dr. Syed Abid Rasheed Shah, Secretary of the Health & Medical Education Department, highlighted the "increasing burden of trauma, medical emergencies, and critically ill patients" arriving round the clock. The letter sent in April this year proposed a comprehensive setup including 24/7 reception and triage, dedicated resuscitation zones, a trauma bay with operation theater support, separate medical and surgical emergency wings, and integration with intensive care units. The letter has advocated a multidisciplinary administrative structure with specialists from surgery, medicine, orthopedics, anesthesiology, and radiology, all under centralized command for real-time coordination. The MFA has assured full faculty cooperation and stressed that the intervention and development would enhance efficiency, safety, and outcomes in emergency care. However, seven months on, there has been no response to the proposal, an MFA member said.

With the "establishment of a well-equipped and independently functioning Accident and Emergency Department will greatly enhance the efficiency, safety, and outcome of emergency medical care at SMHS Hospital. We, the faculty at GMC Srinagar, assure you of our full cooperation in this endeavour".

Over the past five years, between, 2019 and October 2024, J&K has seen 4,899 road deaths and 40,065 injuries. The persistent crisis, blamed on overloading, poor road conditions, and high-traffic routes such as the Srinagar-Jammu highway has been the primary cause of disabilities among J&K youth.

Lack of a streamlined emergency setup, staff shortages and overloaded doctors have often led to poor and compromised attention to emergency cases. It is also seen as a major reason for recent incidents of violence against healthcare workers, including assaults in the emergency wing of SMHS Hospital.