Amid escalating situation between India and Pakistan,hospitals in Kashmir have been asked to paint prominent red-cross signs on therooftops, a move aimed at protecting health facilities from air strikes, as perinternational protocol.
On Tuesday, Government Medical College (GMC) Srinagar wrotea letter to Roads and Buildings (R&B) department to paint “H” or”red-cross” signs over roofs of all health facilities under the medical collegeon “war footing,” an official said.
Following the communication the exercise to paint thered-cross signs on rooftops was taken up in major hospitals in Srinagar: SMHSHospital, LalDed Hospital, Bone and Joint Hospital and others have started theexercise of highlighting their buildings with paint, flags and lights to indicatethat these are health facilities.
An administrator of one of these hospitals said that earlyTuesday morning, principal GMC Srinagar had communicated to them the directionsof government to safeguard hospitals from air attacks. “In the kind of situationswe are witnessing these days, all precautions are being taken to keep hospitalsprotected,” he said.
At LalDed Hospital, white PVC sheets with an “H” written onthem with red cloth have been perched on the roof top of the buildings. Thehospital also hung a few flags on the building with H written on them. Inaddition, red flicker lights for nighttime were also installed on the largestmaternity hospital of Kashmir.
At SMHS Hospital too, the rooftop received a prominentred-cross sign. Medical superintendent SMHS Hospital, DrSaleemTak said that “Hsigns” were already painted on most rooftops of the hospital but had beenwashed away during “snow and rains of the harsh winters”.
However, in peripheral hospitals, no such exercise had beenstarted although an order has been issued by the administration. An official inhealth department said that most hospitals in Baramulla, including those in Uridid not have any signage indicating the nature of the facility. “Whatever signswe had on rooftops have been eroded by weather vagaries,” the official said. Headded that the frequent snowfall in many areas of the district, close to LoCkept rooftops still under snow. “It is not possible to paint the rooftops rightnow,” he said.
Meanwhile Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences(SKIMS) has sounded a “red alert” in view of the situation. Director SKIMS ProfOmar Javed Shah said that the older buildings of the hospital already had a redcross painted over the roofs and the new buildings were being painted now. “We areat it today and other emergency measures have also been instituted to safeguardpatients and the health facility,” he said.
According to International Humanitarian Law, hospitals andplaces where the sick and wounded are collected and treated “should indicatethese buildings or places by some particular and visible signs” and “in siegesand bombardments all necessary steps should be taken to spare as far aspossible”.