Inside Kashmir's Cancer Ward: A Son's Long Watch

As his father fights tumour, a Kashmiri son sees a broken system pushing families to the edge.

- Faizaan Bashir

I know the corridors of the State Cancer Institute (SCI) at SKIMS, Soura better than I ever wanted to.

Over the past three years, I've watched my father fight a slow, punishing war with Multiple Myeloma. And while he's held on with courage, I've come to understand that the struggle isn't only with cancer. It's with the system meant to treat it.

At first glance, SCI appears to be doing everything right. The consultants, senior oncologists with staggering patient loads, handle case after case with focus and precision. You'll see them hunched over files late into the evening, decoding lab reports, tracking the smallest clinical changes, adjusting chemo doses with the care of someone handling live wires.

The junior doctors, most still in training, move briskly through the maze of appointments, updates, and questions. Nurses manage drips, check vitals, and carry out instructions with speed and grace. I've seen them react to a single wince before the patient even speaks. They know what pain looks like.

But what happens when professionalism collides with pressure? When the system you're trying to serve starts to collapse under its own weight?

SCI, the only cancer facility of its kind in the region, is running on the strength of too few people and too little infrastructure.

With more than 50,000 cancer cases in the past seven years, there is still only one PET-CT scanner in operation. This machine is crucial. It stages the cancer, maps its spread, guides the treatment plan.