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| Jammu hospitals also in shambles, ill-equipped | | Indifferent CM, HM, MME? | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, May 19: People of Kashmir are seething with anger. They are holding anti-government demonstrations. They are also denouncing Union Health Minister and senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad for his failure. The leadership of the political parties like the PDP is also extremely angry with the NC-Congress coalition government. So much so that the PDP president and Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly Mehbooba Mufti has sought the Prime Minister's intervention to salvage the situation. Significantly, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has also been expressing dissatisfaction and thinking in terms of approaching the Prime Minister to solicit his support to ease the situation in Kashmir. The story of the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, the ministers - concerned or otherwise -- in the Omar Abdullah-led government and bureaucracy has been no different. They are doing their best to come up to the expectations of the enraged Kashmiris. The case in point is the unfortunate deaths of over 30 infants in the G B Pant and other Kashmir hospitals during the past few days. According to one estimate, about 400 infants have died in this hospital during the last five months or so which, according to doctors, "could be due to asphyxiation".
There are cogent reasons for Kashmiris and Kashmiri leaders to express grief, shock and anguish over the alarmingly high immortality rate of infants at the G B Pant government pediatric hospital and other Kashmir hospitals. There are also legitimate reasons behind the protests the angry Kashmiris have been organizing outside the G B Pant Hospital and at other places to register their protest against the NC-Congress coalition government which has utterly failed to provide adequate healthcare facilities to the people who depend on government hospitals and dispensaries for healthcare facilities. It is hoped that the state government would do the needful and equip all the hospitals in Kashmir with the necessary infrastructure plus doctors, nurses and life saving drugs and equipments. It is the duty of the government which survives on the taxes and levies the poor people pay.
It is also time for the Chief Minister, the concerned ministers and the concerned bureaucrats to turn their attention to the Jammu hospitals, including the Jammu Medical College, which are also in shambles. Rather, the Jammu province hospitals, including the Jammu Medical College, are in a very bad shape. Take, for example, the case of the Jammu Medial College. The BJP-led NDA government took an important decision years ago to raise the level of the ill-equipped and under-staffed Jammu Medical College to the status of All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). BJP leader and the then Union Health Minister Sushma Swaraj came all the way from New Delhi to Jammu to lay the foundation stone. The people of Jammu, unlike the people of Kashmir who had the privilege of having a separate medical college and a separate super specialty hospital - Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) - and Lal Ded Hospital for women, were then very happy. They felt, and for right reasons, that they would get medical facilities similar to the ones available with the AIIMS and SKIMS. Their happiness was misplaced.
Visit the Jammu Medical College and see for yourself the state of affairs in this college the people of Jammu got after years of a sustained struggle. It's just a college in name. It is ill-equipped, under-staffed and ill-managed for reasons obvious reasons. The teachers, who otherwise appear quite dedicated, barring a few, have no time whatever at their disposal to take their classes. For, this is more a hospital than a college. The basic objective of the Jammu Medical College was teaching, and not essentially treating and looking after patients. Since it has turned out to be an hospital, instead of a college meant for imparting instructions in medical sciences, a vast majority of doctors whose strength is also inadequate have been left with no other option but to skip classes and devote most of their time to diagnosing the patients' ailment and attending to their sufferings. They are over-burdened because everyone in the Jammu province rushes to this college for treatment as bulk of the Jammu population just can't afford to go to private clinics and hospitals because they are too expensive.
It's not just that the number of doctors in the Jammu Medical College is inadequate. The college doesn't have the required infrastructure. Trained faculty is an essential requirement but what is also needed is an environment in which they could do justice to their noble profession. And, that environment is lacking. It is the nurses and technical staff that form the backbone of the institution but their number, like the number of teachers, is inadequate to the extent that one nurse has to look after 50 to 60 patients, sometimes even more at a time. This inadequacy adds to the sufferings of the patients as one nurse just can't cope with the work. This inadequacy also sometimes results in scuffles and heated exchanges with the poor and helpless but highly compassionate nurses are just not in a position to cater to the immediate needs of the patients. It is the nurses and not the doctors who attend the patients and do what the doctors would require them to do and very rightly.
Notwithstanding the inadequate strength of doctors, who are to teach students and examine hundreds of patients everyday, the minister and the government handling the nation-building health department for reasons best known to them not only want to increase the number of seats in this medical college but also make the authorities in this college to train those not in anyway connected with the state's medical services. Leave aside the fact that the infrastructure has remained almost the same as it was at the time when the Jammu Medical College was established. When the Jammu Medical College was established, those controlling the college had been given to understand that they would impart instructions only at MBBS level. What is the position today? The position is: The teachers in the Jammu Medical College are imparting instructions at MBBS level, MD and MS levels, besides guiding research students. In other words, they are doing something that is not humanly possible. The result is that the Jammu Medical College produces half-baked doctors and half-baked nurses.
The pathetic story of the Jammu Medical College doesn't end here. The story of this premier institution is much pathetic. No surgeon worth his/her name would like to conduct more than two operations, but here are surgeons who would be required to conduct as many operations as possible in one day. One can very easily imagine what has been happening in the Jammu Medical College.
The authorities in the Medical College purchased vital equipments years ago from "particular" companies, but they could not be used for the benefits of patients because of the inadequacies in staff and infrastructure. The result is that the guarantee and warranty period is over. This is the state of affairs in the Jammu Medical College. The worst aspect of the whole situation is the failure of the political class. It doesn't pay any attention to what is the state of affairs in the Jammu Medical College. The Jammu leadership would do well to imitate the Kashmiri leaders who have launched a full-scale campaign against the state government to force it to provide adequate healthcare facilities in the Valley. The Chief Minister, the Health Minister and Minister of Medical Education would also do well to focus their attention on the state of affairs in the Jammu province-based ill-equipped and understaffed hospitals and dispensaries like they are focusing on the Kashmir hospitals. . |
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