STC EXCLUSIVE: Who Is Watching Kashmir’s Private Hospitals?
STC NEWS DESK
SRINAGAR, AUGUST 10 (STC): A 35-year-old woman from Baramulla, eager to start a family, had walked into the fertility centre on her own feet. Healthy. Hours later, she was dead.
Her family says she was administered an excessive dose of anaesthesia. The hospital, Harkaar IVF & Maternity Centre in Hyderpora, was allegedly running without mandatory registration. An inspection later revealed an unauthorised ultrasound machine installed in the recovery room. The centre was operating from an under-construction building.
The Health Department has now recommended an FIR against the owner.
But here is the question no one is answering: How was a fertility centre allowed to function without registration in the first place? And why did it take a woman’s death to find out?
ONE DEATH, TWO DEATHS — OR JUST ANOTHER “ADMINISTRATIVE ERROR”?
Just days ago, the Chief Medical Officer, Srinagar, ordered an inquiry into the deaths of two patients at Moj Gobur (Medlyn) Hospital in Chanapora. A seven-member committee was constituted.
Then came the corrigendum.
Not two patients. One patient. The other, officials said, was alive but in serious condition.
The official order had referred to both as having died. The CMO’s office called it a “factual description” error.
How does a government order — an official investigation into loss of life — get the most basic fact wrong?
The patient who died had been admitted for a hysteroscopy procedure and later shifted to SMHS Hospital. The second patient’s admission details remain undisclosed.
This is not an isolated “clerical error.” This is a system that cannot even count its dead.
THE ANATOMY OF AN INQUIRY — AND ITS FATAL FLAW
The seven-member committee investigating the Moj Gobur death is headed by District Health Officer Dr Rubina Maqbool. Its members include a gynaecologist, surgeon and anaesthetist from Gousia Hospital, Srinagar.
This is not independence. This is the fox investigating the henhouse.
When a committee investigating alleged negligence in a private hospital is populated by doctors who bank upon these hospitals for their private practice. Here the conflict of interest is glaring.
Independent experts, who are medical doctors, questioned the formation of probe committee. “How is a Professor/HOD of a government teaching hospital permitted to undertake private practice in nursing homes or private hospitals? If applicable service rules prohibit or restrict such practice, who is enforcing those rules? How can an inquiry be perceived as impartial when some persons conducting or participating in such inquiries themselves practise—or may practise after retirement—in private nursing homes/hospitals, potentially including the very private institution under inquiry? They questioned.
This is not an allegation against any individual. It is a demand for transparency, independence and public confidence, they said and added that a medical-negligence inquiry must not merely be ordered—it must be independent, transparent, evidence-based and followed by a publicly accountable outcome.
Meanwhile, the committee has been given five days to submit its report. Five days to review complete medical records, treatment notes, operative details, laboratory investigations. Five days to determine whether standard protocols were followed, whether ICU facilities were adequate, whether there was negligence or delay. Five days to decide life-and-death accountability.
In any other profession, this would be called a rush to bury the truth.
THE PATTERN: INQUIRY ORDERED. THEN SILENCE
This is not an aberration. It is a pattern.
July 2026: A 35-year-old woman dies during an IVF procedure at Harkaar IVF Centre. Protests erupt. The Health Department seeks an FIR. The inquiry report into medical negligence has still not been completed.
July 2026: The government orders a three-member inquiry into a patient’s death at SKIMS Medical College Hospital, Bemina. The committee was given 15 days. The findings? Not made public.
June 2026: A mother dies at SKIMS Medical College Hospital. An inquiry is ordered — months later.
April 2026: A 45-year-old woman dies at Sonwar Hospital. Family alleges post-operative mismanagement. No public outcome.
2025: A woman admitted for ear surgery at a Sopore private hospital allegedly had her uterus removed instead.
Inquiry. Ordered. Then silence.
This is not accountability. This is damage control dressed as governance.
“SHE WAS PERFECTLY HEALTHY” — THE TESTIMONY THAT HAUNTS
The family of the Baramulla woman who died at Harkaar IVF Centre — has given a devastating account.
“She was perfectly healthy and walked into the hospital on her own,” her husband told Kashmir News Trust. “We were shocked to learn that she had already died before reaching the second hospital”.
The family alleges that instead of being informed about her deteriorating condition, doctors shifted her to Shireen Bagh Hospital. By the time the family reached Harkaar, they found the premises locked — despite it being a working day.
A medical facility that locks its doors after a patient dies is not a hospital. It is a crime scene being sanitised.
THE ELEPHANT IN THE OPERATION THEATRE: PRIVATE PRACTICE
Here is the uncomfortable truth that no one in power wants to address:
Many of the doctors performing procedures in these unregulated private hospitals are the same doctors who draw government salaries. The Jammu and Kashmir government has issued directives prohibiting doctors from private practice during official working hours. But the prohibition is narrowly defined. It does not ban private practice outright.
The result? Government doctors — including those in teaching hospitals like SKIMS and SMHS — split their time. Public hospitals lose during working hours. Private hospitals gain — often at the expense of patient safety.
When a government doctor is simultaneously running a private practice, who oversees the quality of care? Who ensures that the equipment is functional, that the anaesthesia is not excessive, that the operating theatre is not an under-construction building?
The answer is no one.
A BILL THAT COULD CHANGE EVERYTHING — OR NOTHING
National Conference MLA Abdul Majid Larmi has demanded a complete prohibition on private practice by government doctors. He plans to table a private member’s bill in the assembly.
“The doctors should be banned from private practice and they should be given incentives so that they do not do private practice,” Larmi told KNS.
He has even suggested seizing the medical certificates of doctors who violate service norms — preventing them from practising anywhere, including abroad.
But here is the catch: Health Minister Sakeena Itoo has already said there is no formal proposal for a blanket ban. SKIMS, she noted, functions as a non-practicing institution — meaning its staff are prohibited from private practice.
If SKIMS can do it, why cannot the rest of the system?
THE UNREGISTERED EMPIRE: 3,000 CLINICS IN LIMBO
PDP leader Waheed Parra recently revealed a staggering statistic in the Assembly: permanent registration of more than 3,000 private clinics in Jammu and Kashmir has been pending for the past two years.
Three thousand clinics. Operating without permanent registration.
Three thousand opportunities for negligence, malpractice and death — with no regulatory oversight.
The Harkaar IVF Centre was one of them. So was the unregistered clinic sealed in Mendhar.
How many more are out there? How many more “Haneefas” will have to die before the system wakes up?
THE QUESTIONS THAT MUST BE ANSWERED
- Why was Harkaar IVF Centre allowed to operate without registration? Who approved its licence? Who conducted inspections?
- Why did the CMO’s office issue an order citing two deaths when only one had occurred? Was it a genuine error — or an attempt to inflate the scale of the crisis?
- Why are inquiry committees packed with doctors from competing private hospitals? Where is the independence?
- What happened to the reports of previous inquiries? Where are the findings from Paras Hospital, Sonwar Hospital, SKIMS Bemina?
- Why are government doctors — especially those in teaching hospitals — allowed to practice privately at all? If SKIMS can ban it, so can the rest of the system.
- Who is regulating the 3,000 unregistered clinics? And when will the government act?
THE HUMAN COST OF REGULATORY FAILURE
Behind every statistic is a family.
Behind every “inquiry ordered” is a husband who will never see his wife again. A child who will never know their mother. A parent who buried their daughter.
Baramulla woman walked into Harkaar IVF Centre on her own feet. She never walked out. Her family will never know the full truth — because the inquiry into her death has still not been completed.
Moj Gobur (Medlyn) Hospital continues to operate. The seven-member committee has five days to submit its report. But given the track record of past inquiries, the public should not hold its breath.
Inquiry ordered. Then silence. That is not governance. That is complicity.
WHAT MUST CHANGE — NOW
- Immediate suspension of all unregistered private hospitals and clinics — starting with those operating from under-construction buildings.
- Complete ban on private practice for government doctors — especially those in teaching hospitals like SKIMS, SMHS and GMC Srinagar.
- Independent inquiry committees — no member should have a professional or financial interest in any private hospital.
- Mandatory public disclosure of inquiry findings — within a fixed timeline. No more “reports” that disappear into administrative files.
- Criminal investigation in all cases of suspected medical negligence — not just administrative inquiries.
- Strict enforcement of the PC&PNDT Act — the unauthorised ultrasound machine at Harkaar is not a minor violation. It is a crime.
THE FINAL WORD
Kashmir’s healthcare system is bleeding. Patients are dying in unregistered hospitals. Government doctors are splitting their time between public duty and private profit. Inquiries are ordered — but their findings are never made public.
This is not a system failure. This is a system designed to protect itself.
The government can issue as many orders as it wants. It can constitute as many committees as it pleases.
But until the findings are made public, until accountability is enforced, until government doctors are barred from private practice — nothing will change.
Another patient will die.
Another inquiry will be ordered.
Another family will be left with nothing but grief and unanswered questions.
Baramulla woman walked into a fertility centre on her own feet.
She deserved better.
Every patient in Kashmir deserves better.
The time for inquiries is over.
The time for action is now.
(Based on official documents, court records, media reports and interviews with families and officials. All allegations are subject to verification by competent authorities.)
