Healers Are Hurt

Kashmiri hospitals are no longer sanctuaries. Violence against doctors is becoming disturbingly normal, and it's a warning sign for all of us.

- Dr Inam Malik

It starts like this.

You've been on your feet for 14 hours straight. You've stitched wounds, resuscitated a cardiac patient, scribbled prescriptions with half-shut eyes, and comforted a mother who just lost her child. It’s past midnight. You're drained, but still alert, still showing up.

Then a man storms in, furious. He shouts that you're ignoring him. Before you can reply, he slaps your colleague across the face.

‘And no one blinks.

‘That’s the part that haunts me most.

Doctors in Kashmir are no longer just healers. We're targets. The emergency room is no longer just a place of urgency, it’s a pressure chamber, where grief, fear, and frustration explode.

‘And more and more, the blows are landing on us.

The fresh assault at a Srinagar hospital wasn’t an isolated incident. It’s just one more entry in a long, growing list. We are witnessing a shift: slow, dangerous, and deeply unsettling,

This region has seen pain before. Conflict, loss, endless cycles of uncertainty. But something is different now. We're not just burdened. We're breaking.

And it’s showing up in the worst place possible: the hospital.

Places like SMHS in Srinagar

At SMHS Hospital in Srinagar, emergency services lately came to a standstill.

‘The reason: a differently-abled doctor was assaulted on duty. The doctors walked out, the administration took an emergency call, and the public was divided.

What unfolded wasn’t just a protest. It was a mirror held to a healthcare system that’s been limping for years. And it reopened a question Kashmir has faced before: should doctors ever go on strike?

Across the world, doctors have left their posts in protest over delayed salaries, violence at work, or burnout after months on the frontlines.

These strikes always spark debate. One side sees a profession defending its dignity. The other sees abandonment of duty.