Though healthcare has worked well during high intensity pandemic periods in Jammu & Kashmir but scope for improvement is always there and more so when it comes to healthcare system which always demands extension and expansion year after year. While S K Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) was established with the intent of making it a medical institute of excellence with the kind of healthcare system that is available at All India Institute of Medical Sciences Delhi but unfortunately the delivery of healthcare services has not been as much satisfactory as it should have been for a variety of reasons. Most of the best of the doctors appointed at SKIMS Soura prefer to quit job either to serve any other country where they can get attractive perks and salaries or for research somewhere else within or outside the country. Creating a viable environment for research was the responsibility of the government but doctors appointed at SKIMS could have themselves also created an enabling environment for research. Had the successive popular governments focused on building a hospital and a research centre of excellence at SKIMS, the quality health care won’t have been an issue in Jammu & Kashmir. Unfortunately the successive popular governments of erstwhile J&K State never conceived the idea of developing single specialty centres of treatment at SKIMS but instead built up super specialty hospitals in both Srinagar and Jammu. Instead of building super specialty hospitals the government could have built single specialty centres at SKIMS for prompt treatment of all critical ailments for which people prefer to go to top private hospitals of Delhi and Mumbai.
Though it is good to have AIIMS at Vijaypur in Jammu & Awantipora in Kashmir but changing SKIMS into a top referral hospital with an integrated healthcare network will surely reduce the rising health woes of the people of Jammu & Kashmir as we need our hospitals to be integrated within a network of health care providers. An integrated health care system that lies close to their homes is all what people of Jammu & Kashmir want in the fast changing health scenario.
While the fact remains that most of the patients willing to go to Delhi or Mumbai for treatment of critical ailments don’t do so because of their inability to bear the huge costs for treatments outside Jammu & Kashmir, the government does not even think about changing SKIMS into a centre of excellence for treatments. An integrated healthcare network could have changed SKIMS into an AIMS like centre of medical science and that was the main motive of establishing SKIMS in Srinagar for the people of Jammu & Kashmir. Though it is good to have AIIMS at Vijaypur in Jammu & Awantipora in Kashmir but changing SKIMS into a top referral hospital with an integrated healthcare network will surely reduce the rising health woes of the people of Jammu & Kashmir as we need our hospitals to be integrated within a network of health care providers. An integrated health care system that lies close to their homes is all what people of Jammu & Kashmir want in the fast changing health scenario.
