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Correspondent
MIRPUR (AJK): President Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), Sardar Masood Khan, on Sunday urged medical fraternity particularly physicians of Pakistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir to voice their concerns over the worst health crisis in Illegally Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
“The people in the IIOJK are faced with the worst health crisis of their history as the Indian occupation forces use pellet guns as a mean of crowed control maiming, blinding, and injuring them”, he asserted.
He was addressing a gathering of over 500 doctors and senior health consultants across the country at an annual mid-summer meet in the State’s metropolis on Sunday.
Organized by Pakistan Society of Internal Medicine (PSIM), the event was also addressed by President of PSIM, Prof Javed Akram, Senior Vice President Prof Aziz Rehman, Dr Somia Iqtadar, Prof Bikha Ram Devrajani and others, AJK President office told media on Sunday. The AJK President said IIOJK people not only suffered from grievous eye injuries but they also have been denied access to communication as well as all level of primary,
secondary or tertiary healthcare amidst year-long lockdown.The occupied territory lacks healthcare staff, drugs, surgical material and the equipment needed for healthcare, he said and cited a report published by the Wall Street Journal, which had suggested that hospitals in IIOJK have become graveyards because of a crisis like humanitarian and health emergency situation prevails there.
Citing another report released by Doctors Sans Frontier (MSF) compiled in collaboration with the University of Kashmir, Khan said some sort of mental distress, anxiety, depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) prevails among nearly 1.8 million Kashmiri adults – 45 per cent of the region’s adult population.
“Children seeing killings, physical torture, sexual abuses and destroyed properties before them are particularly suffering from PTSD,” he added. The AJK President said affiliation of medical colleges with University of Health Sciences (UHS) saying that this would help AJK improve quality of medical education being imparted to the students in the state.Referring to the recent spread of the coronavirus pandemic, he said Pakistan and
Azad Kashmir had risen to the occasion and responded to the catastrophe with courage and resilience.
