Perspectives from the past... Lessons for future

Abstract

During the 1880s, two Christian Missionary surgeon brothers Arthur & Ernest Neve established the first hospital in Kashmir Valley at Drugjan Srinagar, what became known as the Kashmir Mission Hospital and which is currently called the Chest Diseases Hospital, Srinagar. Within a few years of their arrival, the hospital expanded and became a referral centre for patients not only from the Maharaja’s dominion of Jammu & Kashmir but also from the plains of British India, Nepal and even from far off places like Yarkand in Xinxiang China. Miss Irene Petrie, a Christian Missionary stationed at Srinagar during 1890s described the hospital as follows:

“Even with its present accommodation for 125 patients it’s hardly large enough . . . The average annual number of outpatients is 36000; of inpatients over 1300; of operations 3500; . . . over 30,000 surgical operations being the whole record for the ten years 1889-99. . . Though at Srinagar it is by no means for Srinagar only.” (1)