Medical services across Kashmir have been crippled by the devastating floods.
Once, the Shri Maharaja Hari Singh or SMHS hospital used to be super specialty hospital in Srinagar, which catered to nearly three thousand patients a day and offered top-of-the line medical services.
Today, it is one of the many buildings in Jammu and Kashmir's capital that has been left in ruins by the recent floods. Almost all of the hospital's specialized medical equipment -- MRI systems, four X-ray machines, ECG machines among others - has been severely damaged. Scores of hospital beds lie in various states of disrepair outside.
Nearly two weeks after the floods hit, water is still being pumped out from the rooms while the silt left behind by the receding flood waters is yet to be cleared.
Medical services across Kashmir, which witnessed its worst flood in nearly a century, are still crippled, and the nearly 70 lakh locals seem to have little option when it comes to seeking critical medical succor.
They are now entirely dependent on the Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences or SKIMS hospital, a tertiary-care medical facility at Soura in the northern part of the capital.
"On an average, we used to do 100 CT scans a day, more than 40 MRIs, unlimited X-rays. We don't know where patients are going to go now," rued Dr Omar Kirmani, a doctor at SMHS hospital.
As the private sector has also been devastated by the floods, no one knows how may patients may have died due to the lack of critical medical care over the last two weeks. So for, no one has come forward to help the hospitals in restoring crucial medical services.