State faces healthcare crisis

Arteev Sharma and Sumit Hakhoo

Tribune News Service

Jammu, October 20

In a sharp contrast to the ruling PDP-BJP government’s boastful claims of “rapidly improving health sector” in the state, Jammu and Kashmir continues to face a major healthcare crisis with many ills plaguing government-run hospitals in urban as well as rural areas.

Nothing has changed considerably on the ground since the PDP-BJP government took reins of the state. The state government has even failed to attract private players to the healthcare sector in the past three years.

“From the shortage of doctors and paramedics to lack of resources, the government hospitals represent a sorry state of affairs. Despite billions having been invested in the sector since 2005, the system is falling apart as a majority of the patients are forced to travel outside the state for specialist treatment,” said a senior faculty member posted at Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Jammu, requesting anonymity.

The only two major claimed “landmark achievements” of the Health Department in the past two years include sanctioning of a new Government Ayurvedic Medical College for Jammu and a significant decline in the infant mortality rate from 34 to 24 per 1,000 live births.

The department, however, remains silent on the sorry state of all major hospitals — be it medical colleges and its associated hospitals or district and sub-district health institutions.

Despite Rs 2,423-crore annual budget for the health sector in J&K with per capita spending under Plan, non-Plan and Centrally sponsored schemes at Rs 1,931, there is a shortage of critical care ambulances at district, sub-district and medical colleges in the state to provide life support system to seriously injured patients, particularly accident victims while being shifted to the GMCH in Jammu or Srinagar.

Though there are a total of 900 ambulances deployed across the state in different health institutions, most are just for patient transport and not even fitted with basic life support equipment, such as oxygen, suction machine, emergency drugs or a trained paramedic, a fact admitted by the state government itself.

Critical patients, who have to be shifted for better treatment in Chandigarh, Amritsar, Ludhiana or New Delhi, have to take services of private operators who charge from Rs 30,000 to Rs 50,000.

As per the State’s Economic Survey Report 2016, there were 4,433 government health institutions in J&K at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels with 6,674 doctors. The doctor-patient ratio is 1:1880 as against the recommended World Health Organisation ratio of 1:1000.

There is a need for 18,436 paramedics but at present only 14,686 paramedics are available. Most of them are on an ad hoc basis.

Patients suffering from kidney and liver problems, cancer and even other ailments avoid overcrowded government hospitals and prefer to visit Punjab and New Delhi for treatment.

The vital Oncology Department in the GMCH, Jammu, does not have PET Scan, latest equipment and lacks adequate diagnostic equipment. Patients are forced to go for chemotherapy at private clinics on the advice of doctors.

Jammu’s lone Super Specialty Hospital has been facing a major manpower crunch as 128 posts of doctors, including, professors, associate professors, assistant professors, lecturers, registrars and assistant surgeons, are vacant. The hospital has the total sanctioned strength of 187 posts of doctors. Similarly, almost 50 per cent of the sanctioned posts are vacant in the GMCH, Jammu.