Through the columns of your esteemed daily, I wish to draw the urgent attention of the health administration, policymakers, and civil society toward an impending humanitarian catastrophe facing cancer care in Jammu and Kashmir, specifically within our premier tertiary care institutions—SKIMS Soura and SMHS Hospital.
At a time when cancer incidence across Kashmir is rising at an alarming rate, the state of Surgical Oncology infrastructure in the public healthcare sector reflects an astonishing lack of institutional vision. Surgical resection remains the cornerstone of curative cancer management. Yet, at SKIMS Soura—the apex tertiary care referral centre of the region—the entire Department of Surgical Oncology is currently being run single-handedly by just one dedicated faculty member. Working against impossible odds with strictly constrained operative days and limited theatre access, this lone surgeon carries an overwhelming clinical burden.
The tragedy deepens when one steps into the newly constructed State Cancer Institute (SCI) building. While several allied oncology services have been accommodated, the designated Surgical Oncology operating suites remain non-functional—languishing neglected as roosting grounds for birds and rodents rather than serving patients in critical need of life-saving resections.
Worse still is the timeline staring us in the face: the sole functioning faculty member at SKIMS is due to retire in the coming months. Without prompt recruitment or institutional succession planning, the department faces complete closure. Once those doors shut, thousands of socio-economically vulnerable cancer patients will have no recourse in the public sector. They will be pushed directly toward prohibitive private hospitals—ironically staffed by former government faculty who departed due to institutional stagnation—turning a preventable crisis into an immense financial and emotional burden for ordinary Kashmiri families.
A similarly strained reality persists at SMHS Hospital (GMC Srinagar), where merely two faculty members have shouldered the entire surgical oncology workload for over a decade. While their presence provides a measure of continuity for now, two surgeons cannot sustainably absorb the surgical oncology load of an entire population.
This crisis does not stem from a shortage of qualified Kashmiri talent. The valley boasts fully trained, board-certified super-specialists (MCh / DrNB Surgical Oncology) ready, willing, and eager to serve their people in public institutions. What is missing is the administrative will and visionary planning to recruit, empower, and equip these young specialists before public departments collapse entirely.
Cancer does not discriminate; no family is immune, and time is not on the side of a patient awaiting curative surgery. The health administration must urgently operationalize the SCI theatres at SKIMS Soura and fast-track faculty recruitment across both SKIMS and GMC Srinagar on a war-footing before an essential service disappears from our premier public hospital.
