As I write this piece, my heart goes out to the families of the patients who have lost their loved ones, parents who have lost their children, children who have been left without a parent; husbands and wives who have lost their life partners and families left with a void that can’t be filled. They deserve our deepest compassion.
Even though I have been working in the National Health Services in the UK for more than a decade, my heart is still connected to my native place and more so to its people. Before moving to the UK, I had the privilege of working in Jammu and Kashmir. This provided me with first-hand experience of the strengths and the challenges of the region’s healthcare system.
I have an immense respect for the many doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals working in the union territory, who strive to provide the best possible care despite the significant challenges they face. It is from this perspective that I write to express my genuine concern for patient safety in our hospitals and healthcare system.
I was deeply saddened by the number of the tragic deaths during treatments at healthcare facilities, with the recent incident involving a young woman being particularly thought-provoking in its tragedy. Why does this keep happening again and again? It is the same story repeated every time: a seemingly healthy individual, going for a relatively safe procedure that should never have killed them, ends up dead. The families are left searching for answers that are never found. They are forced to look in the wrong places and are often left lost in the dark.
When cases like these occur on a regular basis, there is bound to be an erosion of trust between our healthcare system and the very people it is supposed to protect. Do we truly have a system that prioritises patient safety above everything else? Have we learned anything from such incidents? Do countless more lives have to end prematurely before we realise that we need to bring about a change?
Having worked in both healthcare systems, I have witnessed the difference that strong regulation, regular inspections and a culture of patient safety can make. No operating theatre or procedure room should be permitted to function without meeting rigorous standards for staffing, equipment, monitoring, emergency preparedness, safety management, infection control and regular audit. These safeguards should not be viewed as merely administrative requirements, but as an essential tool to save lives.
My experience in Jammu and Kashmir left me with the impression that, despite the commitment of many clinicians, there remains considerable variation in the standards of infrastructure, medical care and a glaring lack of patient safety culture. While some institutions provide good care, patient safety should never depend upon where an individual happens to seek treatment.
The government needs to strengthen the existing regulatory framework for all healthcare facilities performing surgical or invasive procedures, including those involving sedation or anaesthesia. Licensing may already be in place, but it should be based on far more rigorous standards, with renewal granted only when a facility can clearly demonstrate an ongoing commitment to patient safety. This should include periodic independent inspections, clearly defined minimum requirements for trained personnel and emergency equipment, compulsory reporting and investigation of serious adverse events, and meaningful accountability where standards are not met.
However, strengthening patient safety standards requires more than introducing new regulations—it requires building a culture in which safety is embedded in every aspect of healthcare delivery. This can be achieved by establishing clear minimum standards for all healthcare facilities and conducting regular independent inspections. They should make sure their staff is properly trained and involved in continuing professional development.
Routine use of evidence-based safety checklists and standard operating procedures, along with encouraging hospitals to undertake regular quality improvement projects and clinical audits go a long way in promoting patient safety. Healthcare professionals should feel supported to report safety concerns without fear of being labelled as a whistleblower. Organisations must facilitate learning from errors and put measures in place to prevent their recurrence.
Oversight should not begin only after a tragedy has occurred or a complaint has been made. Instead, healthcare facilities should undergo regular, unannounced, risk-based inspections to ensure that patient safety standards are being maintained at all times. A culture of prevention is far more effective and safer than one of investigation after harm has already occurred.
Healthcare institutions or doctors should not merely claim that they provide safe care—they should be able to demonstrate it through objective, independently verified evidence. The purpose of regulation should be to identify risks before they result in adverse events, not only involving patients but staff as well. This should be followed by supporting institutions in addressing deficiencies to ensure that every patient receives care- and every healthcare professional provides it- in an environment that has been independently verified as safe for both. If these standards are not met, the healthcare facility should not be allowed to carry on treating patients until such time that these deficiencies are addressed.
Every hospital or clinic should be able to provide a valid licence, the date, and the outcome of its most recent regulatory inspection, and any recognised accreditation in a place that is easily accessible to patients and their families, as well as on an official government website.
Information such as the qualifications of healthcare professionals, the availability of emergency and critical care facilities, and the scope of services that the institution is licensed to provide should be publicly accessible. This would enable patients to make informed decisions based on transparent, independently verified standards rather than advertisements, self-promotional social media content or advertising, or word of mouth.
When people can easily verify that a healthcare facility has met rigorous safety standards, public confidence is strengthened, and institutions are encouraged to maintain the highest standards of care.
As well as this, when serious incidents occur, there must be a clear and transparent process to determine what happened, whether standards were followed, and whether any failures in systems, staffing, equipment or supervision contributed to the outcome. Families who have lost a loved one deserve honest answers, timely communication and a process that does not leave them feeling ignored or powerless. At the same time, healthcare professionals and institutions that meet their responsibilities should also be protected from unfair blame. True accountability is not about punishment alone; it is about learning, transparency and ensuring that preventable harm is not repeated.
We cannot ignore the fact that the responsibility for improving patient safety does not rest with the Government or healthcare professionals alone. As a society, we must also uphold the values of honesty, integrity and accountability. In a place where corruption, favouritism or the circumvention of established rules are tolerated, patient safety is inevitably compromised. Regulatory standards lose their meaning if inspections can be influenced, licences obtained without genuine compliance or deficiencies overlooked. The consequences of corrupt and unethical practices often go unnoticed when they affect someone else. We may ignore them, justify them, or believe they will never touch our own lives—until they do.
Tomorrow it could be our own mother, daughter or sibling lying in that hospital bed, suffering, as a consequence of our inability to act with integrity and honesty. Building a truly safe healthcare system requires a collective commitment from policymakers, regulators, hospital owners, healthcare professionals and the public alike to place patient welfare and human values above all other interests.
The media, including “social media journalists” and digital news platforms, also have an important role to play in improving patient safety. Following a tragic incident, public attention often turns immediately to assigning blame before the facts have been established. While accountability is essential, reporting that focuses solely on sensationalism or speculation rarely contributes to lasting improvements. Instead, such moments should be used as opportunities to educate the public about patient safety, explain the standards that healthcare facilities are expected to meet, encourage people to verify whether a hospital or clinic is appropriately licensed and inspected, and stimulate informed discussions about the reforms needed to prevent similar tragedies.
Responsible journalism should not only ask who is at fault, but also why the system allowed the event to occur and what changes are necessary to ensure that it does not happen again. By shifting the conversation from blame to learning, awareness and accountability, the media can become a powerful partner in driving meaningful and lasting improvements in healthcare.
The healthcare professionals of Jammu and Kashmir deserve a system that supports safe practice, and the people of the Union Territory deserve the assurance that every hospital or clinic has been independently assessed and found capable of managing both routine care and unexpected emergencies.
I am not writing this to criticise any individual doctor, hospital, or healthcare facility. Rather, this is a call for stronger systems. Around the world, the greatest advances in patient safety have come not from assigning blame after adverse events, but from learning from them and building systems that prevent harm wherever possible.
Can we do the same in our homeland? Can we unite to foster a culture of safety that extends from our homes and roads to our workplaces, where every human life is valued, protected, and never reduced to a statistic?
I remain hopeful that Jammu and Kashmir can become a leader in patient safety by adopting robust regulatory standards, embedding a comprehensive culture of safety, and supporting healthcare professionals in delivering the highest quality of care. Every loss should strengthen our resolve to improve the systems that exist to protect patients. After all, the true measure of a healthcare system is not how it responds after lives are lost, but how effectively it prevents avoidable harm in the first place. The time to act is now—not after the next tragedy, but before it.
(The Author can be reached at: [email protected])
