This time when the focus of the Government is increasing accountability for improving the delivery of services in the hospitals across Jammu & Kashmir like other parts of the country, the health department is grappling with the challenges of manpower shortage and non availability of basic infrastructural facilities in hospitals and more so in rural areas of both Kashmir Valley and as well as Jammu division. 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 posts has come to a grinding halt amid a row over the cancellation of several recruitment processes undertaken by J&K Services Selection Board (J&K SSB) in recent months. Amid shortage of both doctors and paramedics the Government has put in place a better system of regulating the working of hospitals by putting in a better system for checking the punctuality of the medical staff particularly doctors. 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 which the health system faced during three high intensity periods of corona virus in last three years both in Kashmir valley and Jammu division like other parts of the country.
While the inspection and monitoring systems need to be improved for furthering the causes of improvement in patient care facilities in both rural and urban hospitals and reduce the intensity of unwanted delays in the shifting of patients from peripheral to referral hospitals , the focus on issues concerning availability of medical staff, basic infrastructure and prompt patient care facilities in both rural and urban hospitals are obviously the priority areas for the purposes of making hospitals in Jammu & Kashmir 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. While the inspection and monitoring systems need to be improved for furthering the causes of improvement in patient care facilities in both rural and urban hospitals and reduce the intensity of unwanted delays in the shifting of patients from peripheral to referral hospitals , the focus on issues concerning availability of medical staff, basic infrastructure and prompt patient care facilities in both rural and urban hospitals are obviously the priority areas for the purposes of making hospitals in Jammu & Kashmir fully prepared to face any epidemic or endemic.
