SRINAGAR, Sept 2: To improve healthcare facilities in Jammu and Kashmir, authorities have sanctioned appointment of at least 100 doctors for hospitals offering treatment under the traditional or the alternative system of medicine.
The state’s planning department has approved 400 posts of doctors and paramedics for hospitals offering healthcare facilities under the traditional system of medicine or AYUSH which include the country’s indigenous Ayurvedic treatment and the Unani way of medicinal cure besides the Siddha and Homeopathic systems.
“The Planning department has approved 400 posts for the hospitals and other healthcare institutions under the ISM (Unani and Ayurvedic). The process is in final stages now,” PTI quoted state’s Health Minister Sham Lal Sharma as saying to a news agency.
There has been concern among various sections of the medical fraternity in Kashmir after reports that such doctors were practising in various government hospitals or other health facilities offering allopathic or conventional treatment, a violation of the norms laid out by the Medical Council of India.
Official figures revealed there were around 439 doctors of the Indian system of medicine working in Primary Health Centres, 479 in dispensaries. Also, the figures revealed, around 159 such doctors were working as Assistant Surgeons in different hospitals across the state.
The minister, however, said the doctors will improve the diagnostic side of healtcare for which the government did not have enough manpower.
He said his department had sent a bigger requirement of manpower including doctors and paramedics but the Planning department has only approved 400 posts which includes around 100 posts of doctors.
“Our requirement for doctors is not very high… We need technical people to assist the doctors,” Sharma said.
According to sources, the Health department had sent a proposal of creating 1,088 posts of doctors and paramedics to the Planning department in 2009 for improving the healthcare facilities.
They said there was little action on the proposal till the recent hue and cry about the high number of death in tertiary care hospitals like G B Pant children’s hospital, SKIMS Soura and SMGS hospital in Jammu.
The doctors had blamed huge rush of patients at the referral hospitals due to lack of facilities in primary health centres, sub-district hospitals and district hospitals in the state.
