Time matters more in the delivery of healthcare facilities than it counts in the delivery of any other public service and more so in the remote rural areas of hilly districts of both Kashmir division. What matters the most is the fact timely treatment saves human lives even in remotest of the remote areas in any part of the country and same holds good for people of the remote rural areas in the hilly districts of Jammu & Kashmir. Since timely treatment for patients suffering from critical ailments means increase in their life spans and as such wisdom demands that extra focus is laid on treatment of critical ailments at health centre in rural parts of Jammu & Kashmir and more so in hilly district. While irrefutable fact is that the patients of hilly areas suffering from critical ailments often die in mid way before reaching an urban or semi urban healthcare centre where they expect a better treatment, most of the patients of hilly areas because of their physical and financial inability to reach the nearest urban health centre or any main referral hospital of Srinagar or Jammu loose battle of life at the beds of poorly equipped rural health centres. While facility of prompt treatment for critical ailments at rural health centres demands liberal funding, the government does not even think about establisjing dedicated health centres for critical ailments in the hilly areas of either Kashmir Valley or Jammu division. Wisdom demands that government establishes dedicated health facility centres for treatment of critical ailments in every medical block of all the hilly districts of both Kashmir Valley and as well as Jammu division. No doubt that under recently launch Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission the patients suffering from critical ailments can undergo surgeries free of cost at any hospital in Jammu & Kashmir but patients who need not to undergo surgeries but have to remain under medical observation for days and months are denied free medical treatment at most of the private hospitals and nursing homes in the twin capital cities and most of the major towns across Jammu & Kashmir.
Keeping in view the rural health scenario in hilly districts of Jammu & Kashmir there is no short cut to measures for sustainable treatment support to patients of hilly districts reporting for treatment of critical ailments at urban and semi-urban health centres. Even as patients wait for government support for treatment of their critical ailments in the rural hospitals of the hilly districts, most of them die in their battle for timely treatment at their nearest urban and semi urban health centres.
So before Government establishes dedicated health centres in hilly districts of both Kashmir Valley and Jammu division, the urgent respite to the people of hilly districts could be free of cost treatment even for normal ailments for which they are not to be admitted in the hospitals. Keeping in view the rural health scenario in hilly districts of Jammu & Kashmir there is no short cut to measures for sustainable treatment support to patients of hilly districts reporting for treatment of critical ailments at urban and semi-urban health centres. Even as patients wait for government support for treatment of their critical ailments in the rural hospitals of the hilly districts, most of them die in their battle for timely treatment at their nearest urban and semi urban health centres.