Govt mulls attaching health centres to medical colleges

Samaan Lateef

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, May 21

The J&K Government has proposed to attach health centres to medical colleges of the state to impart better training to students.

Officials said four to five public health centres (PHC) would be attached to the medical colleges with administrative and financial control.

“It is envisaged that all medical colleges shall have the required number of health centres associated to it as per the Medical Council of India (MCI) guidelines,” a senior health official told The Tribune.

He said the government had proposed to attach PHCs, urban health training centres (UHTC) and rural health training centres (RHTC) to all medical colleges with administrative and financial control. “It is important for the medical students to have hands-on training in primary health centres before treating the patients at tertiary care hospital,” said Dr SM Salim Khan, head of the preventive and community medicine department of Government Medical College (GMC), Srinagar.

He said the students were trained to provide primary treatment to the patients in these health centres.

J&K has two medical colleges each in Srinagar and Jammu while five more are coming up in various districts later this year. The GMC, Srinagar, already has three PHCs, a UHTC and RHTC attached to it.

Also, the autonomous Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) has a separate medical college at Bemina in Srinagar.

Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on December 7 had ordered to take over the community health center at Sumbal, Bandipora, and its 14 affiliated health centres by SKIMS.

MCI guidelines

As per the Medical Council of India (MCI) guidelines, every medical college shall have a mandatory urban health training centre, rural health training centre and two to three public health centres attached to it  with complete administrative and financial control for teaching and training of medical graduates.