Comprising 43% of Valley's area, north Kashmir lacks heart center

Srinagar, Mar 12: The Government Medical College Baramulla, the only GMC in north Kashmir has no cardiologist. In fact, the entire north Kashmir, which is roughly 43 percent of Kashmir valley, has just two cardiologists, at separate hospitals – in Handwara and in Bandipora. For a cardiac emergency in Kupwara or Baramulla, the nearest hospital is SMHS Hospital.

The long distance may well be the last distance a victim of heart attack travels. Heart events give the patients the shortest window to survive.

The J&K Budget 2025-26 allocated funds for setting up three cath labs in J&K, one of these in north Kashmir. The announcement may sound as a reprieve for the population living in this area, but experts believe there is idiomatic 'many a slip between cup and lip'. They argue that a Cath Lab is the need of the hour in the area, but a more pressing and immediate need is to consolidate and rationalise the cardiology workforce.

Currently, J&K is facing a severe shortage of cardiology specialists in the public sector. Large areas and big hospitals are without adequate care, especially for interventions like angioplasties and stent insertions that are critical for patients suffering from heart disease. With cardiologists working in hospitals with no cardiac care infrastructure, a specialist lamented that these specialists are performing duties of medical officers and nothing more.

While in south Kashmir, a Cath Lab was recently made functional at GMC Anantnag, the region does not fare much better. While GMC Anantnag has three cardiologists, the strength rendering it difficult for keeping Cath Lab open round the clock. In addition, none of the three cardiologists working at the Lab are recruits of GMC Anantnag. The failure to recruit dedicated human resource, cardiologists and other allied staff for the GMC Anantnag Cath Lab puts a question mark over sustainability of these services at GMC Anantnag.

In Central Kashmir, SMHS Hospital Cath Lab was not replaced after it served its time. Super Specialty Hospital Srinagar has a functional Cath Lab, inadequate to serve the load of patients. Even at this lab, most of the cardiologists are not from the Cardiology Department, but deputed from other departments. Moreover the Cath Lab technicians and other allied staff have been hired on a temporary basis. The adhoc staff has to get a contract renewal every year.

A high number of patients require cardiac care during surgeries, or cardiac clearance for surgeries. These patients are not operated in the new GMCs of J&K, but add up to the queue at Srinagar based hospitals. A senior doctor working at a GMCs said, “What is the point of opening so many GMCs if the Government did not intend to make GMC level facilities available at the allied hospitals.” Experts believe that the real challenge for J&K’s health sector is not opening new facilities but strengthening care by consolidation of services and placing the human resource at postings where their services can be availed. Kashmir has a high attrition rate of specialists and super-specialists due lack of avenues locally. For cardiology, many move to higher-paying private sector jobs exacerbating the shortage in government hospitals. This proves especially detrimental for people dependent on the public sector, which forms the majority of Kashmir’s population.