Govt order to repatriate doctors from GMC Srinagar, Jammu sparks concerns

Srinagar, Apr 28: The order issued by Health and Medical Education (H&ME) Department mandating immediate repatriation of doctors hired for Directorates of health Jammu and Kashmir and working in Government Medical College (GMC) Srinagar and Jammu has been termed as a “well-intentioned but badly-timed” one by medical experts.

Concerns of disruptions in tertiary healthcare delivery at human resource constrained associated hospitals in absence of a replacement of work-force is the reason for the criticism.

The order issued on April 22 by Secretary of Health H&ME aims to end the unauthorised tenure of medical officers and specialists and strengthen staffing in peripheral healthcare institutions. In J&K, as per a Union Health Ministry report (Health Dynamics of India), J&K’s peripheral hospitals had a specialist shortage of nearly 50 percent of the sanctioned strength. Key specialists, the surgeons, pediatricians, gynecologists and physicians were in dire shortage at the sub-district and district hospitals, a major jolt to healthcare delivery in the peripheral areas.

However, GMC Srinagar for example has over 2500 hospital beds, spanning over its various hospitals: SMHS Hospital 1000+ beds, Children Hospital 500 beds, Lal Ded Hospital 500 beds, Super-Specialty Hospital 220 beds, Chest Diseases Hospital 150 and Psychiatric Diseases Hospital 140. These hospitals together cater to an estimated load of 8000-10,000 patients a day on OPD bases. However, the beelines of patients and unrealistic and inhuman waiting times point to gross staff shortages, remaining unaddressed for decades.

Many senior specialists working in these hospitals said that it was high time that government addressed the vacant positions at various levels. They said that the arrangement of “borrowed manpower” from Directorates was not adequate but helped in addressing deficiencies in some areas. “Let the directorate doctors work in the directorate, but a replacement must be made. The absence of replacement staff threatens to strain already overburdened facilities,” a senior faculty member said while speaking on condition of anonymity.

An insiders at GMC Srinagar’s associated hospitals said many of the repatriated doctors were working in critical areas of patient care and hospital administration. “Many of these were running neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), managing outpatient departments (OPDs), and sharing administrative responsibilities with medical superintendents,” he said. The “critical oversight”, he said, is the absence of temporary or permanent replacements for the repatriated doctors.

Many believe that the absence of a comprehensive healthcare policy that encompasses the peripheral and tertiary care was a major constraint in quality healthcare delivery. “Yes, the Government sector is providing almost all the healthcare services in Kashmir particularly, but the quality of this service needs to improve. And that can happen only when we have more doctors, more paramedics, more nurses and more technicians,” said a doctor working in a GMC Srinagar hospital.

The J&K Government, in an answer to a question in the Assembly in March this year, said 550 posts of Medical Officers were being filled.