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Careless healthcare at Srinagar hospital costs a chronic liver disease patient her life

‘She breathed her last in her sister’s lap’

Srinagar: Rumi Rehman Dar, a resident of Surtaing Rainawari, who was suffering from chronic liver disease, is no more. She passed away this morning after complaining severe pain in her body.

According to family, they took her to the SMHS hospital where doctors treated her for the pain and was discharged immediately. “Her pain didn’t subside till we reach our home. She breathed her last in her sister’s lap,” said Aadil Ahmad, Rumi’s elder brother. “There is a lot of mess as far as the healthcare system in Jammu and Kashmir is concerned. People die because they don’t proper treatment,” he said.

“Rumi was suffering from liver disease when she was she was in her teens. But doctors finally said that her condition deteriorated and she needs a liver transplant,” said Irfan Ahmad, the youngest of her four siblings.

With her death, people have started questioning the ailing healthcare of Jammu and Kashmir as the treatment she was undergoing costed her Rs 15 to 20 lacs and the family wasn’t in a condition to bear the costs. The family had appealed the general public to help the family for the treatment and some philanthropists had come forward to help her. However no help came from the government despite former Chief Minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed announcing corpus fund in SKIMS chest for such chronic patients.

Pertinently, liver transplant surgeries are not performed in this Himalayan State, while as its treatment also remains far from the perfection.

“Rumi was supposed to be operated in New Delhi soon. Government must do something soon to avoid further loss of life due to non-availability of quality healthcare,” he said.

Irfan said that their father is ‘willing to beg’ but he just wishes to save Rumi. “He is jobless from last 25 years now. He was working in Gaziabad in a pharmaceutical factory but then Babri Masjid issue escalated and preferred home. Since then he is suffering from Asthma,” said Irfan who is working as a laborer with a mason.

His eldest brother is a carpenter but he and another brother, are suffering from severe psychiatric ailments. Irfan and one of his sister’s (working at a glass factory) are working presently to run the family.

The deceased Rumi diagnosed as a case of CTP Class C with MELD score=27, portal hypertension, Ascites and recurrent SBP. The patient was registered at government medical college, Srinagar under MRD no. Gas/Hep/17/84/MC dated 11.2.2017.

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