Srinagar: A month after the deluge, water in most parts of Kashmir has receded and from it have emerged stories of brave hearts who risked their lives to save others. Amongst them are the doctors and staff of GB Pant Children's Hospital in Srinagar who battled the fury of the floods and fast vanishing resources to save the lives of more than 300 children.
As anger brew over doctors in some hospitals for deserting their patients, not many heard about the courage Dr Iram Ali and her team of 50 displayed that day at the GB Pant Hospital in Srinagar.
"Within 10 minutes electricity went, water was 10 feet high, all the ventilators stopped. We detached patients from ventilator and then started pumping manually. It was 3 am, dark. We had to use mobile torch to administor patients. It was a very difficult time. No help came before Sunday morning," recalls Dr Ali.
"The most difficult time was when we were taking care of the newborns who were premature. Slowly, slowly, almost every other newborne perished in the deluge," remembers Ulfat Ammen, nurse at GB Pant.
As many as 11 children died in those 30 hours. 70 per cent diagnostic machines were damaged and food and water supply was running out.
"We had two canteens on the ground floor. Whatever food material we had, all was submerged in flood waters because we did not have enough time to take it all out. We were drinking saline water. We had half a kg rice which we mixed with Tang and consumed and gave to those in the ICU," says Dr Sartaj Bhatt, Senior resident, GB Pant hospital.
Help finally came in the form of a lone NDRF boat. Critically ill children were evacuated first. It took three days to evacuate the entire hospital. But the doctors and nurses didn't go home. "We left here on Monday and headed to medical camps with the help of Army men and there were attended more patients," says Shabnam Hussain, nurse.
A month after being submerged in 20 feet of water, OPD has begun operations at the hospital.
In a city where health services remain crippled with four of the six major hospitals in shambles, this may be a drop in the ocean. But as these brave doctors have shown us, when a deluge hit, you sometimes have to just do your job to make a difference.
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