The infrastructural facilities may have improved at the hospitals in Jammu & Kashmir but still the availability of sufficient doctors is a matter of concern for the people in both Kashmir Valley and Jammu division. Though making functional all the new Government Medical Colleges in several districts of both Kashmir Valley and Jammu division is a major achievement for the Jammu & Kashmir Government but since these new medical colleges have started admitting batches of students for undergraduate medical courses selected through NEET examination just two year back the deficiency of doctors can’t be overcome atleast for another five years. Given the fact that seats have increased with the start of admissions for undergraduate medical course for the last two years at the new medical colleges of both Kashmir Valley and Jammu division, the availability of doctors at hospitals in rural areas won’t be an issue after next five years but currently the availability of doctors in Government run hospital sis an issue of concern both in Kashmir Valley and as well as Jammu division. The increasing referrals as usual from several districts of Kashmir Valley to SKIMS Soura, Bone and Joint Hospital, Lal Ded Maternity hospital and even some private hospitals like Noora Hospital, Florence Hospital, Khyber Hospital and Shifa Hospital indicates that hospitals in rural areas of Kashmir Valley don’t have the required men and machinery available for catering to the growing medical facilities of rural populations in Kashmir Valley. For immediate relief and respite to rural populations in Jammu & Kashmir the fast track recruitment of doctors waiting for jobs for years together after completing their degrees both within and outside Jammu & Kashmir is by all standards of understandabilities the only way to further the causes of the availability of doctors at rural hospitals in both Kashmir Valley and as well as Jammu division.
“The selection of the vacant posts of doctors through a fast track recruitment process and fast facing the installation of key health infrastructural facilities could be a two pronged strategy for reducing the increasing stress on major referral hospital in twin capital cities Srinagar and Jammu and easing the accessibility of people to key health facilities at rural hospitals”.
What matters the most is the completion of several under construction health projects in Jammu & Kashmir which would obviously reduce the increasing public grievances related to availability of basic infrastructural health facilities even in the remotest of the remote areas in both Kashmir Valley and Jammu division. Public grievances about lack of infrastructural facilities in some rural hospitals have reportedly also come up during the recent “Back To Village” program of the Government and in several such cases the panchayat representatives particularly heads of both Block Development Councils (BDCs) and as well as District Development Councils (DDCs) have also recommended installation of key medical equipments in hospital of their concerned community blocks and districts. The selection of the vacant posts of doctors through a fast track recruitment process and fast facing the installation of key health infrastructural facilities could be a two pronged strategy for reducing the increasing stress on major referral hospital in twin capital cities Srinagar and Jammu and easing the accessibility of people to key health facilities at rural hospitals.
