Crisis of facilities, services in hospitals

This time when Jammu & Kashmir like other parts of the country is in a state of emergency, the health department is grappling with the challenges of manpower shortage and non availability of basic infrastructural facilities in hospitals. While the patient doctor ratio as per the recommendations of the World Health Organisation (WHO) should have been 1; 1000 the patient doctor ratio in Jammu & Kashmir is unfortunately 1: 3866 and thus the manpower shortage itself paints the dismal picture of the working of the hospitals in Jammu & Kashmir as even the average patient doctor ratio in hospitals of other parts of the country is 1:2000. Even this time hundreds of the posts of doctors are falling vacant in health & medical education department but the recruitment of doctors like recruitment for other gazette posts has come to a grinding halt after the termination of the chairman and members of Jammu & Kashmir Public Service Commission (J&K PSC) in the backdrop of the bifurcation of the state into two union territories. The failure of the government to regulate the attendance of the medical staff particularly doctors is intensifying the crisis like situation triggered by the corona virus scare spreading deep and wide across Jammu & Kashmir like other parts of the country. As the shortage of medical staff often pushes managements of the government run hospitals in a state of chaos and crisis, they find it difficult to manage emergencies. Adhocism to stabilize the crisis like situation won’t work always in the absence of required medical staff in government run hospitals particularly in towns and villages. This is the cause for concern keeping in view the challenges thrown by the increasing scare over the corona virus spread.
The government has to focus on issues concerning availability of medical staff, basic infrastructure and prompt patient care facilities in both rural and urban hospitals to ensure that hospitals are fully prepared to face any epidemic or endemic.
The health facilities in rural areas is by no standards satisfactory as even diagnostic laboratories of the have not been upgraded after their up gradation from primary health centers (PHCs) to Sub District Hospitals (SDHs) and Sub District Hospitals to district hospitals. Even the complaints about the availability of ambulance services in most of rural hospitals have gone noticed and consequently the patients referred to referral hospitals in Srinagar and Jammu die before reaching the hospitals. So the inspection and monitoring system have to be improved for furthering the causes of improvement of patient care in both rural and urban hospitals so the unwanted delays in the shifting of patients from peripheral to referral hospital don’t become the cause of deaths of patients suffering from critical ailment. So the government has to focus on issues concerning availability of medical staff, basic infrastructure and prompt patient care facilities in both rural and urban hospitals to ensure that hospitals are fully prepared to face any epidemic or endemic.