When bureaucratic callousness becomes a medical hazard, the system itself becomes the disease
At Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, a troubling paradox unfolds daily. Cancer patients — already broken by diagnosis, drained by chemotherapy, and burdened by distance — are subjected to an administrative ordeal so needlessly cruel that it borders on institutional negligence. The question must be asked, loudly and without diplomatic softening: how long will SKIMS’ administration continue defending a system that punishes the sick for seeking care?
The picture inside Oncology OPDs is damning. Specialists across departments examine patients, dispense verbal counsel, yet stubbornly refuse to record their observations on the primary oncology ticket. The consequence is predictable and pitiless — patients queue repeatedly for fresh slips, lose entire treatment days to paperwork, and return home without intervention. Families from Kupwara, Bandipora, and Anantnag — who sacrifice wages, meals, and sleep to travel to Srinagar — are turned away not by medical limitations but by procedural stubbornness that has no defensible justification in 2025.
This is not a resource problem. This is a leadership problem.
SKIMS carries the weight of being Kashmir Valley’s sole advanced tertiary care institution. That distinction demands not just clinical excellence but administrative accountability. Instead, what persists is a paper-based, department-siloed ticketing system seemingly designed for an era when cancer cases were a fraction of today’s overwhelming caseload. Every passing week without reform is a deliberate choice — a choice to prioritise institutional inertia over patient dignity.
The medical case for a multipurpose oncology ticket is irrefutable. Cancer demands multidisciplinary coordination — oncology, radiology, pathology, radiation, palliative care — working in concert, not in isolated silos. Immunocompromised patients crowding multiple OPD queues face genuine infection risks. Delayed specialist inputs postpone critical interventions. These are not administrative inconveniences; they are clinical failures with potentially fatal consequences.
Leading cancer centres across India — Tata Memorial in Mumbai, AIIMS in Delhi — have long operationalised multidisciplinary clinics and integrated digital oncology modules. That SKIMS, an institution of considerable expertise and reputation, continues resisting such elementary reform reflects either administrative lethargy or a troubling indifference to patient suffering.
The SKIMS administration and the Lieutenant Governor’s administration, which oversees Jammu and Kashmir’s health infrastructure, owe citizens an urgent, time-bound response. A unified oncology record system, priority slots for advanced-stage patients, and digital departmental integration are neither radical nor expensive demands — they are baseline obligations of a public institution.
Patients battling cancer cannot negotiate with time. Every day lost to avoidable queuing is a day stolen from treatment, recovery, and life itself.
The administration must stop deliberating and start acting. Anything less is unacceptable.
