JK floods: Srinagar's Lala Ded hospital to open tomorrow

Kashmir Valley's premier maternity care hospital, Lala Ded, will start functioning from tomorrow -- ten days after the floods forced its closure and led to the shifting of the patients.
Medical superintendent of the hospital, Mushtaq Ahmad Rather, said, "We are hopeful of starting the out-patient department (OPD) in the new block of the hospital from Thursday."
He said the in-patient department will be made operational soon after the OPD becomes functional.
Around 110 personnel from the 13th battalion of Jammu and Kashmir Armed Police are currently engaged in the cleaning drive at the hospital.
"In the first phase, we deployed 60 personnel and we got 50 more in the second phase. We wanted to help in some way and wanted to serve the society and our people," B A Khan, commandant of the battalion, said.

The medical superintendent said, "We are trying our best to restart the hospital. We did not let the people suffer and started the OPD operations in Sanat Nagar and IPD in Bone and Joints (B and J) hospital."

The hospital authorities had occupied 30 beds at B and J hospital and IPD operations were going on there.
Rather said dewatering of the hospital has been completed and the buildings are being cleaned of the muck and spoil ed items.
"We are in the process of cleaning the hospital and then we will sanitise it before making it fully functional," he said.

He said most of the medical infrastructure in the hospital has been damaged, and drugs and other materials have been destroyed.
"Our blood bank has been damaged and 250 units of blood have been destroyed. The machines and equipment there has been damaged," he said.
"The drug store was flooded rendering the medicines useless. Our stores, where we keep items used in the hospital like disposables and bedding, were washed and everything there damaged," he added.
"Right since the floods came, locals have helped us. The NGOs and other volunteers are helping us even now. Police have taken on the cleaning mission and they are helping a lot," the superintendent said.

While the commandant said that the police wanted to give back something to the hospital were most of the people had their birth.
"We thought of critical areas to start our mission. We thought of schools and hospitals. Lala Ded is the most critical area as most of our sisters come here. We felt as most of us had taken birth and started our life from here, let us give a re-birth to the hospital," he said.