Internet Services in Kashmir Hospitals Yet to Resume Day after Govt Promises Restoration

Srinagar: Broadband internet services for hospitals in the Valley were yet to resume on Wednesday despite the Jammu and Kashmir government having promised its restoration a day ago.

Government's official spokesperson Rohit Kansal had on Tuesday said the broadband services in hospitals and SMS services on post-paid mobile phones would be restored at midnight.

While the SMS services have been restored to some extent, the internet facilities are yet to resume.

The Valley's premier government-run SMHS hospital here is without internet facilities for nearly five months.

An official of the SMHS hospital administration said the internet services at the medical institution were not restored on Wednesday.

“The internet is not working. The services have not yet been restored," he said.

The official said the hospital administration had requested authorities to provide the internet services and was expecting the services to be restored on Wednesday.

We were expecting it to happen today after the government's announcement, but it has not happened so far, he added.

In GB Pant hospital, which is the lone children's hospital in the Valley and deals with a huge rush of patients, the services were yet to be restored.

“So far, the internet is not working. It may be restored later, but the services has not restarted yet at the hospital," hospital's Medical Superintendent Kanwaljeet Singh said.

An official of the Jawahar Lal Nehru hospital at Rainawari also said the internet services were not restored at the hospital. The same was the case at the Chest Diseases Hospital in Dalgate area of the city.

The only hospital in the Valley where the internet was working was Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), Soura, but the service was restored there in the month of October last year.

“The internet services in the hospital are working. We have a private leased-line internet services which was restored in late October,” said SKIMS superintendent engineer Farooq Ahmad.

People have demanded immediate restoration of the internet services in the valley, especially in the hospitals.

In today's age when everything is digital, the internet plays an important role. The absence of the service is creating a lot of problems for patients as well as doctors and has hampered healthcare, Mudasir Lone, a patient at SMHS hospital said.