Islamabad
As coronavirus cases surge in India, healthcare professionals fear Indian Occupied Kashmir will become the centre of the deadly pandemic.
Only emerging from a seven-month lockdown in February, its public healthcare system is one of the most unprepared and understaffed in the country, Kashmir Media Service reported.
The territory has recorded 380 coronavirus cases but this number is thought to be a gross underestimation. Last week, a reported 5,000 testing kits failed to arrive causing the Kashmir Directorate of Health Services to stop taking samples.
Official sources said there was already a backlog of some 1,300 tests and new patients were arriving all the time. “In the last 30 years, India prioritised conflict management over upgrading healthcare in occupied Kashmir,” explains Khurram Parvez, the programme coordinator of the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society.
“Our doctors gained expertise in managing trauma victims but coronavirus is a completely new thing for them. “Jammu and Kashmir is the least prepared region to deal with this virus and it will have devastating effects.”
In 2018, an audit found the doctor to patient ratio in the union territory was one of the lowest in India at 1:3,866.
The national average is 1:2,000, while the World Health Organization recommends a norm of 1:1,000.
The study also found less than 50 per cent of nursing positions had been filled.—APP
