Understaffing in Government departments has a direct bearing on the delivery of public services and more so it comes to understaffing in hospitals and educational institutions including schools and colleges. Unfortunately the availability of doctors and paramedics at Government hospitals is not sufficient enough to deal with the increasing flow of patients at both the Out Patient Departments (OPDs) and as well as Emergency wards. A recent directive of the Jammu & Kashmir High Court to the Jammu & Kashmir Government to resolve the issue of filling the vacancies of doctors shows that delivery of health services has come under stress due to delay in the recruitment of doctors and paramedics in Government hospitals. While the shortage of doctors is a pressing issue for the Governmental hospitals not only in Jammu division as pointed out by the Jammu & Kashmir High Court in it’s latest directive to the Government but it is equally a pressing issue in Kashmir division as well. Official figures if put in public domain would themselves show that vacancies of doctors and paramedics remaining unfilled due to delay in recruitments by J&K PSC and J&K SSB respectively need to be filled on priority. By all standards of understandabilities the onus of pursuing the matter of filling the vacancies of doctors and paramedics with both the J&K Public Service Commission (J&K PSC) and as well as J&K Services Selection Board (J&K SSB) lies on J&K Health & Medical Education Department. Obviously the reducing staff strength at Government hospitals is in itself an indication that Health & Medical Education Department neither pursues the matter of recruitments for the already referred vacancies of doctors and paramedics nor speeds up the process of referring the new vacancies to J&K Public Service Commission (J&K PSC) and J&K Services Selection Board (J&K SSB) respectively.
“Since expeditious recruitments for the vacant posts of both the doctors and paramedics and as well as creation of new post of doctors and paramedics would by all standards of understandabilities resolve the pressing issue of understaffing at Government hospitals, administrative wisdom demands that Government acts on the direction of J&K High Court on priority over the filling of vacant posts of doctors besides filling the vacancies of paramedics for the purposes of overcoming understaffing at Government hospitals just to further the causes of the delivery of health services across Jammu & Kashmir”.
Keeping in view the fact that besides establishing new hospitals at several places the Government has also upgraded several existing hospitals also, the creation of new posts to increase the vacancies of both doctors and as well as paramedics deserves immediate attention and intervention of the Government. Since expeditious recruitments for the vacant posts of both the doctors and paramedics and as well as creation of new post of doctors and paramedics would by all standards of understandabilities resolve the pressing issue of understaffing at Government hospitals, administrative wisdom demands that Government acts on the direction of J&K High Court on priority over the filling of vacant posts of doctors besides filling the vacancies of paramedics for the purposes of overcoming understaffing at Government hospitals just to further the causes of the delivery of health services across Jammu & Kashmir.
