Jammu's Chest Diseases Hospital Has No Ventilator: What That Means for Patients and What to Ask

Jammu's Chest Diseases (CD) Hospital, which opened in 1937 as an advanced TB hospital, has never acquired a ventilator, according to a Northlines report of 20 October 2026. This piece explains what that means in practice. It reports what the article says; we have not been able to confirm it independently.

What the report says

• The hospital has 140 beds and 10 wards; wards 1 and 2 are the emergency wards. It became a CD Hospital in 1955.
• Medical experts say ventilators are essential for seriously ill chest patients, especially those with advanced tuberculosis.
• Patients who need ventilation are shifted to Government Medical College (GMC) Jammu. Experts quoted say such transfers can be life-threatening, and attendants have sometimes been told to arrange a ventilator themselves.
• The CT scan machine has been out of order for the last two years.

The hospital's side

GMC Jammu Principal Dr Ashutosh Gupta told Northlines: “The patients admitted in the CD Hospital needing to be put on Ventilator are being shifted to GMC-Jammu.” The report carries no statement from the Health Department, so the reasons for the gap, and any plan to fill it, are not on the record. That is a missing answer, not an admission.

What patients and families can ask

• Which hospital will a deteriorating patient be moved to, and how is the transfer arranged?
• Is an ambulance with oxygen support available for the transfer?
• Is the CT scan facility working, and if not, where can it be done?

This matters for young people because TB and other chest illnesses commonly affect students and working-age adults; for context on cancer testing capacity at the city's main teaching hospital, see our report on GMC Jammu's new tests.

Source: Northlines, 20 October 2026.