Srinagar, Dec 27: The Federation of All India Medical Association has strongly criticised the authorities at Government Medical College Handwara in north Kashmir for suspending a resident doctor over what it termed a clear case of systemic failure, faulty infrastructure and poor hospital administration.
The criticism comes in the wake of an incident in which a patient was seen being pulled by attendants on a trolley along the Handwara road towards a private diagnostic centre after hospital authorities reportedly claimed that the CT scan machine at GMC Handwara was not functional. The visuals triggered public outrage and raised serious questions over the availability of critical diagnostic facilities at the hospital.
Following the incident, Dr Danish, a resident doctor from the Department of Surgery who was also acting as security in charge of the hospital, was placed under suspension with immediate effect pending submission of a committee report. The decision has drawn sharp reactions from medical bodies.
FAIMA vice president Dr Muhammad Moomin Khan said the suspension reflects a tendency to shift blame onto frontline doctors instead of addressing chronic administrative and infrastructural lapses. He said the issue was not individual negligence but repeated system failure. According to him, non functional or poorly maintained equipment, including diagnostic machinery, continues to plague major health institutions in the region.
Dr Khan questioned the rationale behind the action, asking what fault the resident doctor committed when the hospital infrastructure itself failed the patient. He said resident doctors cannot be held accountable for broken machines, delayed repairs and weak governance. Fixing infrastructure and ensuring functional equipment should be the priority rather than suspending doctors who work under immense pressure, he added.
FAIMA also pointed out that such actions demoralise young doctors and divert attention from the urgent need to upgrade hospital facilities in north Kashmir, where patients often have no option but to move to private centres due to lack of functional services in government hospitals.
The association demanded immediate restoration of the suspended doctor and a transparent probe into the condition of medical infrastructure at GMC Handwara, particularly the CT scan facility. It also urged the administration to take corrective measures to ensure that patients are not subjected to humiliation and risk due to systemic shortcomings.
The incident has once again brought the spotlight on healthcare infrastructure in peripheral districts, where lack of functional machinery continues to compromise patient care despite repeated assurances of improvement.