Sometimes, lot many things happen on a particular front. That exactly happened on health sector last week when some interesting statistics were revealed. Dr Showkat Ahmad Zargar, who heads the SKIMS, revealed “alarming statistics” of a study about drug abuse to a gathering organized by the NGO Yateem Foundation.
As many as 41% of the male students of state-run medical college in Srinagar smoke, he said. So do 7% of female students. Of the enrolled lot, he shocked the audience by revealing that 22% were involved in substance abuse. In the same function, Dr Saleem-ur-Rehman, Director Health Services Kashmir, revealed there were only 28 paediatricians for 12 district hospitals and 46 sub-district hospitals. But there is no dearth of qualified obstetricians and technicians because there were 53000 deliveries in hospitals outside the LD and the SKIMS’ small obstetrics facility.
In yet another revelation, a newspaper reported 10183 posts of doctors and paramedics were created in April 2002 and March 2011 but 8837 (1494 gazetted, 5532 non-gazetted and 1761 class-IV) of these positions are still lying vacant. The crisis has hit medical education as well. It is no secret now that the state-run medical college is not having adequate number of functional positions in place which can actually help improve its teaching set up. This does offer a grim picture of the state’s health sector. Given the principal focus of the society on creating more and more doctors, one wonders what is happening to them once they graduate.
A section of them is undoubtedly going for further studies and a fraction is actually flying out to greener postures. Even at places where doctors exist and function, there are problems. Despite an all round watch and uninterrupted presence of doctors, hundreds of infants have been buried in last one year simply because the systems malfunction partially in the periphery and partly in the tertiary care hospitals like G P Pant in Srinagar. Then the problem of private practice during official timings is another major issue that is impacting the general health of the society.
The entire crisis comes at a time when the health ministry in Delhi intends to help the state to create and sustain an infrastructure that it requires. There is neither a dearth of funds nor any blanket ban on offering new ideas to tackle newer problems.
The J&K state has health issues very different than other states. Regardless of the improvement in the situation that policymakers see, the issues pertaining to the mental health have remained ignored over the years. Kashmir has more suicides to it credit than it ever had in its recorded history.
As Kashmir houses a large number of armed forces, tens of thousands of visitors, pilgrims and a unspecified number of non local labourers, it runs the risk of grave crisis on various health issues. For managing all these issues J&K requires a better and efficient human resource and a robust health policy.
