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| Amid pandemic, medical equipment turns defunct as J&K hospitals face staff shortage | | Hundreds of qualified technicians await employment, Govt least interested to engage them | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, June 12: Amid pandemic, it is a strange scenario in J&K where on one hand the Department of Health and Medical Education is grappling with the shortage of trained medical staff and, on the other, qualified technicians are sitting idle even after attaining requisite qualification as there is hardly any job opportunity, particularly government employment, for them.
In the absence of trained medical technicians at its disposal, the Health and Medical Education Department is finding it difficult to keep the expensive equipment installed at various hospitals across the Union Territory operational.
With trained staff not sufficiently available, the ventilators and other hi-tech machinery in the hospitals are only gathering dust even as there is no dearth of trained medical technicians in J&K, who are still jobless.
Ironically, during the last four years, about a hundred medical technicians have taken diplomas from Government run AMT Schools but they are sitting unemployed.
Even if someone was able to get government employment, then it was only a contractual appointment that too on meager emoluments.
The neglect and official apathy meted out to these unemployed medical technicians can also be gauged from the fact that no appointment has been made on the posts created for them in the DRDO Hospital, Jammu.
Moreover, hundreds of qualified Anesthesia Technicians are jobless even though the government accorded sanction to run a two-year diploma course in all the AMT Schools in the year 2014 with a view to overcome the shortage of Anesthesia Technicians in Intensive Care Units (ICUs) of various hospitals in Jammu and Kashmir.
Surprisingly, only a handful of trained Anesthesia Technicians could get permanent government employment since the first batch passed out in the year 2017.
There are few other such technicians who somehow got a contractual appointment for one year in various Medical Colleges including GMC Jammu while some of them were engaged under the National Health Mission for a meager salary of Rs 12000 per month.
Despite a large number of trained Anesthesia Technicians roaming here and there in search of employment, there is a huge shortage of Anesthesia Technicians in the Department of Health and Medical Education.
The situation in the Health Department is particularly alarming where only a few Anesthesia Technicians are available while the condition is no better in the Medical Education Department which is also facing acute shortage of these technicians.
The lack of qualified technicians is the reason that even the DRDO Hospital in Jammu does not have enough trained staff to run ventilators. At present, the staff members having BSc Nursing degrees and few pharmacists are being trained to operate ventilators in the GMC, Jammu.
It is in place to mention here that as many 47 posts of Anesthesia Technicians were created for DRDO Hospital Jammu but not even a single person has been appointed as the recruitment process for these posts has not started yet though the hospital has started to function. At the same time, all the appointments have been made in DRDO Hospital Srinagar opened after the DRDO Hospital, Jammu.
Sources told Early Times that the recruitment process for 47 posts of Anesthesia Technicians in DRDO Hospital, Jammu got delayed due to the GMC administration’s fear that if it starts the recruitment process for these posts then the technicians working under National Health Mission in GMC Jammu will also leave their jobs and go to DRDO Hospital, Jammu due to the variation in pay.
“There is a huge difference in salary structure of Anesthesia Technicians viz GMC Jammu and DRDO hospital Jammu. Technicians appointed under the National Health Mission are getting only Rs 12000 per month while if appointed in DRDO Hospital they will get a salary of Rs 35000,” said sources. |
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