Govt hospitals to provide online info on doctors, lab reports soon

Tribune News Service

Jammu, December 18

Government hospitals in Jammu and Kashmir will soon have a dedicated computer network to provide real-time information to the people about the availability of doctors, drugs in stores and bio-chemical labs.

In the first phase, a project will be started for the computerisation of all departments in Government Medical College (GMC) and Shri Maharaja Gulab Singh (SMGS) Hospital. When the project is complete, it will allow people to get information about different facilities and test reports online.

Meanwhile, nearly 800 ambulances, run by the Health Department in the urban areas and those under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), will get new exterior design and colour coding for proper identification. Under the new christened name of the National Ambulance Service (NAS), tenders have been floated for the purpose.

Though the state is still facing shortage of ambulances and is far behind other states in providing such a service to the people, but under the Centrally sponsored scheme, it has been made mandatory to upgrade the emergency health vehicles, absence of which has led to the death of hundreds of people every year.

“The government has directed Shri Maharaja Gulab Singh (SMGS) Hospital to submit a detailed record of all the referral cases from private nursing homes in view of high neo-natal mortality rate (NMR), which is around 37 per cent in the state,” said a Health Department official.