Srinagar: As all-party delegation arrives, many pellet injured patients discharged from hospital

Early on Sunday morning, the hospital discharged five more patients – in contravention to the routine, wherein the patients are discharged only after the customary morning check-up round by the doctors.

“In the past two days, a large number of injured were discharged. It is a departure from the routine,” a doctor told The Indian Express. “I think, many of them (discharged patients) should have been kept at the hospital for proper monitoring”.

On Saturday, the hospital discharged a youth from Pulwama, who had a pellet lodged in his left eye. He had come on Friday and after a primary surgery, he was sent home and told to return on Friday. “We don’t know why we are being sent home,” said his mother, who was attending to him at the hospital. “We don’t know how we would go to Pulwama and come back on Friday”.

The sudden discharge of the injured from the hospital is significant especially as some of the parliamentarians from APD may try to visit the hospital.

In 2010, when the members of the All Party Delegation visited the hospital, crowded by patients and the people attending to them, they were forced to leave the hospital after people raised pro-freedom and anti-India slogans.

Hospital sources said that only 70 injured are admitted in the ophthalmology department of the hospital now. Sources said the increase in patient discharges could be aimed at thinning out the crowd at the hospital to prevent any protests in case the parliamentarians visit the hospital.

The Medical Superintendent of SMHS Hospital Dr Nazir Choudhary said the discharges have nothing to do with the APD. “We have our own system. What have we to do with the delegation,” he told The Indian Express. “They are our own children, our own people. How would discharging them help?”