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| Balvinder Singh meets Sakina Itoo, calls for Urgent Healthcare Reforms | | |  Early Times Report
JAMMU, Feb 4: Prominent RTI and social activist Balvinder Singh met with Hon'ble Minister for Health & Medical Education, Higher Education, and Social Welfare, Sakina Masood Itoo, to discuss key healthcare challenges and propose critical reforms aimed at improving patient care management.
During the meeting, Singh presented several recommendations/suggestions, including: Ensuring Nutritious Diets for Patients: Introducing strict conditions in the new tender process to guarantee patients receive nutritious meals, including eggs and milk. Enhancing Transparency in Diet Distribution: Implementing stringent monitoring to ensure fair distribution of meals. Incentivizing Rural Postings for Doctors: Doubling the Housing Rent Allowance (HRA) for doctors serving in peripheral areas to make rural postings more attractive. Establishing an online, uniform, and transparent transfer system ensuring that doctors who complete rural postings are automatically transferred to urban areas and vice versa-free from bureaucratic and political interference. Mandatory Rural Service for Doctors: Introducing a five-year compulsory service bond for doctors seeking admission to post graduate and super-speciality courses in government Medical colleges, with a penalty clause of Rs 50 lakh for violations. Singh emphasized that since taxpayer money is used to train doctors, they must be available where they are most needed-ensuring better medical access in rural areas and addressing the ongoing shortage of healthcare professionals.
Singh also demanded the closure of 15 Urban Health Centres (UHCs) located between 1.3 km and 8 km from existing health institutions like PHCs, CHCs, SDHs, DHs, and GMC Jammu. He named these UHCs as rehabilitation centres for influential individuals, citing RTI data showing that some doctors have been stationed in these UHC's for 10 to 25 years while rural areas face severe doctor shortages. As a result, patients in remote regions compelled to travel over 50 km for treatment. Singh criticized the government's unnecessary expenditure of lakhs of rupees on UHCs with two to three Medical Officers and 5-10 staff members, despite their limited utility.
"Singh also updated the Minister regarding his petition pending in the Hon'ble High Court of J&K concerning the shortage of doctors. He filed this petition after obtaining information under RTI in 2018, which revealed a shortage of 50 to 55 Medical Officers (MOs) and 35% shortages of Non-Gazetted and Class IV employees in the Jammu region.
Additionally, Singh raised serious concerns over the exorbitant pricing of medicines at AMRIT Pharmacies within state-run hospitals, citing RTI data. He also flagged irregularities in procurement via GeM (Government e-Marketplace), exposing a nexus between suppliers and buyers, who allegedly manipulated the process to purchase items at rates higher than prevailing market prices. Singh said his revelations were substantiated by Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) who on the basis of my Press Conference regarding the scam in GeM procurement, constituted a team under AIG (Policy) ACB who after verifying the facts issued an Alert Note vide No: ACB-E-218491 dated September 19, 2022.
Minister Sakina Masood Itoo assured the RTI Activist that his recommendations /suggestions would be thoroughly examined, and any measures beneficial for strengthening healthcare delivery and management would be seriously considered for implementation. |
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